VVVVVV Veni, Vide, Vince!
A new Latin language course for the adult beginner
Royal Holloway, University of London
Latest revision 2016
All previous versions should be discarded
This material is unpublished and the copyright belongs to the author, Professor J.G.F.Powell. Copies are distributed on the understanding that no reproduction or alteration will take place without the prior agreement of the author.
1 CCOONNTTEENNTTSS
To the Teacher 3 To the Student 4 PART I Units 1-8
Unit 1 How to pronounce Latin. 7 Unit 2 Some examples of real Latin. Grammar of simple sentences: verbs, nouns, subjects and objects. Cases: nominative, genitive, dative. Classifying Latin nouns: the five declensions. 22 Unit 3 The verb ‘to be’ in Latin. Personal pronouns. The plural of nouns. Genitive and dative plural. ‘This’ and ‘that’; gender of nouns; neuter plural. 32 Unit 4 Commands: the Imperative. Objects of verbs: the Accusative case. Looking up nouns in the dictionary. Accusative plural. 41 Unit 5 How verbs work. Present tense. Looking up verbs in the dictionary. The four conjugations (‘colours’) of verbs. Stems and endings. Personal endings. Subject and verb; simple sentences; negatives; conjunctions. Questions. 49 Unit 6 Subject, verb, object: word order. Third-declension nouns. Apposition. 60 Unit 7 ‘Nuts and bolts’: pronouns; prepositions. The Ablative case. 68 Unit 8 Revision of noun endings. Solving ambiguities. First and second person of verbs. Declension of pronouns. Revision. Mock test on Units 1-8. 76
PART II Units 9-16
Unit 9 The Passive voice. Agents. Ablative of pronouns. Compound verbs. 88 Unit 10 Noun-phrases; agreement. Adjectives. Possessives. More about demonstratives: word order again. Topicalisation and contrast. Particles and conjunctions. 99 Unit 11 More about adjectives. Instrumental ablative. Adverbs. Word order with the verb ‘to be’. Expressions of place. Consolidation: pronouns and place/time words. 111 Unit 12 Personal endings of the passive. Deponent (‘cross-dressing’) verbs. Mock test on Units 1-12. Consolidation: a step-by-step guide to translating any simple Latin sentence. 127 Unit 13 Untranslatable Latin. More third-declension nouns. Third-declension adjectives. Present Participles. A glimpse of the Gerundive. 138 Unit 14 The Subjunctive (present tense). 149 Unit 15 Principal Parts of verbs; infinitives. use of the infinitive. Fio, eo, fero. 162 Unit 16 Possum, volo, nolo, malo. Use of the infinitive (continued). Accusative and infinitive construction. Revision: basic Latin verbs. Mock test on Units 1-16. 170 2
PART III Units 17-22
Unit 17 Word recognition exercise. Comparison of adjectives. ‘Than’, ‘as’, etc. More about adverbs. 177 Unit 18 The Perfect tense. Appendix: Reverse index of perfect tenses. 186 Unit 19 The Past Participle Passive. 205 Unit 20 The Perfect Passive. Perfect tense of deponents. Deponents with objects. Semi-deponents. Derivatives from the past participle. 214 Unit 21 Revision of first three declensions. Fourth and fifth declensions. Multipurpose words. Nouns and adjectives in -er. 220 Unit 22 Cases in context: the Ablative. Expressions of time and place. The Genitive: objective, partitive and descriptive genitive. The Dative: dative with verbs. Predicative dative. Mock test on Units 1-22. 231
PART IV Units 23-30
Unit 23 Verbs: revision of forms learned so far. Filling in the other tenses. Imperfect and Pluperfect. 241 Unit 24 Who, which, what. Relative pronouns. Correlation. Idem. Quid novi? Ambiguities involving forms of qui. 251 Unit 25 The Future Tense. 261 Unit 26 Clauses. Subjunctive in subordinate clauses. Ut clauses. The Imperfect Subjunctive. 271 Unit 27 The Subjunctive expressing possibility. Subjunctive of sum possum volo nolo malo. If-clauses. The Pluperfect Subjunctive. Dealing with continuous Latin prose. 279 Unit 28 Cum ‘when’. Dum and antequam. Perfect Subjunctive and Future Perfect Indicative. Indirect questions. More about the accusative and infinitive. Revision of tenses and their use. 290 Unit 29 Participles and gerundives. Ablative absolute. Gerunds; supines. 301 Unit 30 Revision exercises. Passages for translation. 307
Appendix A: Summary of Grammatical Terms 316
Appendix B: A Basic Latin Word List 320 3
TO THE TEACHER Previous versions of this material have been used with reasonable success for a number of years in the Beginners’ Latin courses at the University of Newcastle and at Royal Holloway, University of London. The course is principally intended to provide carefully ‘programmed’ explanations of the most important features of Latin accidence, syntax and sentence- construction, with examples from real Latin (based initially on simple inscriptions) and a selection of exercises. It assumes no previous knowledge of grammatical terminology: the most important grammatical terms are explained as they occur. Non-traditional terminology has been introduced only where no satisfactory traditional term exists, e.g. the term ‘topicalisation’ in the context of word order, a feature which has been largely neglected in traditional courses. It is strongly recommended that every member of the class should be given a complete copy of the course material, for backup and revision purposes. It should, of course, be explained that this is not a substitute for attending classes! It is essential that every member of the class must possess, and be constantly encouraged to use, a Latin-English dictionary. The course material is designed to be used in conjunction with a dictionary, and is meant to encourage a ‘research mentality’ more suitable for the learner at university, rather than rote learning of vocabulary lists. The use of a Latin dictionary is a trickier process than most people realise. Parsing the word in front of one so as to arrive at the dictionary form, and then selecting the right meaning from those given in what may be a long dictionary entry, is a complex linguistic skill, but it is surely the one that is most necessary of all for those who intend to use their Latin to read and analyse classical texts in the original. Those who have followed this course at Newcastle and at Royal Holloway are allowed to use dictionaries in the examination, and it is recommended that this should be done whenever an examination based on this course is set. Exercises are an important part of any language course. Some are included in this material, but it is recommended that the teacher should devise additional exercises of his/her own for illustration, practice and revision. In doing so, care should be taken not to introduce (or, at least, not to introduce without explanation) grammatical features that have not yet been explained at the relevant point in the course. In the later stages of the course it will be possible to use original Latin texts. No apology whatever is made for sometimes using made-up (often whimsical) examples, or for introducing the occasional post-classical feature. All forms and patterns not found in authentic Latin are, however, rigorously excluded. Finally, anyone using this course is earnestly exhorted to send me a note of any errors or misprints that may be detected in it, and to make suggestions for more general improvement. I am grateful to Dr. Jaap Wisse and Mrs. Teresa Saunders (Newcastle) and to Nick Lowe and Claudia Stephan (Royal Holloway) for sending me suggestions for corrections and additions. JGFP 4
TO THE STUDENT You may be embarking on a course in Latin for various reasons: • because you want to read Latin literature in the original, not just in translation; • because you are interested in ancient or medieval history and wish to use the original sources; • because you are interested in the language for its own sake, or in linguistics; • because you are required by the regulations for your degree to take a course in Latin. If you are doing it for one of the first three reasons, you will probably start with a certain amount of motivation and confidence which will stand you in good stead as you go along. You will probably still find some parts of the learning process difficult or tedious, but these problems can be overcome if you make good use of the course material and, above all, if you are not afraid to ask for help when you have difficulty. Remember that you will gain from the course in proportion to the amount of (properly directed) effort you put into it. The course itself will tell you how to direct your effort. If you are doing Latin because you have to, you may not feel very confident to begin with. You may never have tackled a foreign language before; or you may have had bad experience of trying to learn Latin or another language. You may not even feel very interested in Latin as a language, and you may be unsure why you are being made to do it. In such circumstances the only reasonable strategy is to give it a try, follow the course for a time and see how it goes. You may find that it comes more easily than you expect, and you may begin to see the point of it more clearly after you have been doing it for a while. One thing only is certain: if you put nothing in, you will get nothing out. The difficulties students have with Latin are more often problems of confidence and attitude than any other sort. Most English people seem to think they are bad at languages, when of course they are no worse than people of other nationalities. Most people are brought up to believe that Latin is very complicated and difficult, and works in unfathomable ways. Some people find the Roman mentality, as revealed in the language, difficult to come to terms with. It is best to try to face these problems now, at the beginning, and realise that nobody would try to teach you Latin if it were really impossible. To learn Latin effectively using this course, you need: • WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT THE PECULIARITIES OF LATIN. Latin is not much more difficult than any other language, but it is different from English in quite a number of respects. The main difficulty in learning Latin – or any other language – is the difficulty of believing that those strange-looking words actually mean something, or that any language could be so daft as to say things that way. You must try to see the logic of the way Latin works at each stage, and then it will not seem so strange after all. If you understand it thoroughly, you will remember it better as well. One of the main hurdles you will encounter to begin with is the Latin word order, which can be quite different from English. This course is the first one ever to try to explain Latin word order systematically from the earliest stages. • WILLINGNESS TO LEARN GRAMMATICAL TERMS. In order to talk about the way any language works, we have to use some grammatical terms and concepts. These may not already be familiar to you. If not, then you must be willing to learn them. It is not your fault if you have not been taught them before, but it is your fault if you fail to learn them now that you need them. Every effort has been made to explain the grammatical terms as they are introduced; and the effort you put in to learning them will be well rewarded, not only in the progress you make with Latin but also in terms of your general capacity to think about languages, including your own language. Some people tend to see 5
grammatical terminology as a barrier between themselves and the language they are trying to learn. In fact, properly used, it is a short cut to better understanding. Those who neglect grammar, though this may seem to be the easier option to begin with, will find that they soon reach a point at which learning the language itself becomes very much more difficult, if not impossible. It is self-deception to suppose that one can learn Latin just by ‘picking it up’. This could only work if one lived in a Latin-speaking environment, and even then it would need to be backed up by formal study. • WILLINGNESS TO DEVELOP AN EYE FOR DETAIL. The effective reading of Latin depends above all on the accurate recognition of words and their endings. If at any stage you think to yourself ‘That’s O.K., I’ve got a rough idea of how it works and the details can take care of themselves’, you have a recipe for disaster. A single letter can make all the difference to the meaning. Reading words aloud will help you to remember them accurately, so be sure to learn the pronunciation thoroughly. • WILLINGNESS TO WORK THINGS OUT PATIENTLY. At the beginning you will often have to puzzle out Latin sentences word by word. Do not expect to start reading fluently after a few weeks. It takes years to develop full fluency in reading any foreign language. Make sure you understand each point before you go on to the next one; and revise constantly. One particular problem concerns those words in Latin that are spelt alike but mean different things. Words like this occur in all languages (English not least) and are always a problem for the learner. They will not cause excessive difficulty if you treat them with care; but jumping to conclusions can be fatal to your attempts to understand a Latin sentence. So take it slowly to begin with! This course pays particular attention to these ambiguities and the strategies you can use for resolving them. Many Latin words look like English ones and are often actually the originals from which the English words are derived. But the meaning is not always the same. This is because the meanings of words change over time. A single word in Latin could often acquire a range of meanings, of which one only survived into English; for example, consisto survived as ‘to consist’ and as ‘to be consistent’, and it can mean either of these things in Latin in certain contexts, but the most common meaning in Latin is ‘to stop’ or ‘to stand still’. The consequence of this is that you have to use the dictionary even if the Latin word looks familiar. Connections with English words may sometimes be helpful in remembering the meaning of Latin words, but sometimes the meaning has changed so much and in such a complicated way that remembering the English derivative only makes things more difficult. There is no substitute for paying attention to each word, in context, as you meet it. • WILLINGNESS TO ASK QUESTIONS. Make full use of your teacher or anyone else who is helping you to learn Latin. Pester him or her until you have understood each point thoroughly! Some of the questions you might ask are anticipated for you in this course. You will find the authoritative voice of the Textbook interrupted from time to time by a question in italics. If you think the questions are silly, you can always ask more sensible ones of your own. Most important of all, you need: • A LATIN DICTIONARY, the bigger the better. In this course you will be encouraged to use the dictionary from an early stage, in preference to learning long vocabulary lists. You will need to learn how to use the dictionary; it isn’t entirely as simple as it may seem. This is the first course ever to attempt to teach this technique explicitly. You will be allowed to use the dictionary in any test or examination. 6
In order to learn Latin, you do not need: • THE BRAINS OF A LINGUISTIC GENIUS. Any normal human being is theoretically capable of mastering any human language. Even the stupidest Romans managed to speak Latin. • AN EXCEPTIONAL MEMORY. Everyone forgets things when learning a language. When you have seen a word or a grammatical feature six times, you will remember it. If you see it less than six times while you are following this course, the chances are that you will not need to remember it. The emphasis throughout this course is on understanding of principles and on learning how to look things up, not on memory.
Finally, as Virgil put it: tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito! Do not give in to setbacks, but instead go forward more boldly! 7
PART I: UNITS 1-8 UNIT 1 How to pronounce Latin 1.1 Introduction; the Latin alphabet Why is it important to learn to pronounce Latin in a particular way? 1.1.1 The first thing any learner of Latin needs to do is to learn to read Latin words aloud and recognise them when heard. This is still true, even though Latin is nowadays primarily a written language. There are a number of reasons: