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1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to describe certain aspects of Latin grammar that are
interesting and different from English. This paper will talk about the use of case markings in
Latin, which gives meanings to nouns, pronouns and adjectives within a sentence while English
primarily uses word order for this purpose. This paper will also discuss natural and grammatical
gender found in Latin and English as well as the use of tense and its realizations. Latin’s grammar
is very distinct from English and in some sense it is easier and harder than English. Latin’s case
markings make it easier for readers to know which part of speech a word is from thus the meaning
is clear no matter what order the words are put in. However the existence of grammatical gender
in Latin makes it difficult for a second language acquirer since there is no actual sex to refer to in
order to know which gender it is. Two texts were consulted for this paper, “Latin Grammar”
originally written by I. N. Madvig in German and translated by Rev. George Woods (1880) and
“English Grammar for Students of Latin” written by Norma Goldman and Ladislas Szymanski
(1985).
Case indicates the function of a word within a sentence and both Latin and English have
case markings but they are used to a different degree in each language. While Latin relies heavily
on case markings to indicate the meaning of a sentence, English relies on word order. This is
because English only has possessive case marking and some case markings on pronouns thus it
Latin nouns, pronouns and adjectives are marked for case, which determines it’s meaning
within a sentence, which allows Latin to have varied word orders without changing the meaning
of the sentence.
Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
There are seven cases, five main, that have singular and plural forms that are attached as endings
(suffixes) to stems. This paper will focus on the five main ones and they are as follows:
The occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as case,
There are 5 Declensions in Latin; these groupings are made primarily by endings and grammatical
gender.
1st Decl. 2nd Decl. 3rd Decl. 4th Decl. 5th Decl.
Nominative -ǎ (-e, -as, -es) -us, -er N. –um -s, (or unmarked) -ǔs N. u -es
Accusative -am (-en) -um -em (-im) -um, -u -em
Genitive -ae -i -is -ūs -ei
Dative -ae -o -i -ui, -u -ei
Ablative -ā -o -e (-i) -u -e
1st Decl. 2nd Decl. 3rd Decl. 4th Decl. 5th Decl.
Nominative -ae -i, N. -a -es, N. -a (-ia) -ūs, N. -ua -es
Accusative -as -os, N. -a ------------- -------------- ---------------
Genitive - ārum -ōrum -um (-ium) -uum -ērum
Dative -is -is -ǐbus -ǐbus (-ubus) -ēbus
Ablative -is -is -ǐbus -ǐbus (-ubus) -ēbus
In the first declension all the original Latin words in singular in the nominative form end in –ǎ
while those words derived from Greek can end in –e, –as, and –es. This declension group consists
of mostly feminine words with a few masculine exceptions that refer to occupation (Madvig,
1880, p. 25-27). The second declension consists primarily of masculine and neuter words with
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
small group of words that are feminine. The feminine words are mostly names of countries,
towns, and islands, which are originally Greek, and the names of most precious stones (Madvig,
1880, p. 28-31). The third declension has the largest groups of nouns and includes masculine,
feminine and neuter words. There are many exceptions to the endings of this declension, which
makes it difficult to say if a word is masculine or feminine. For example the ending –or usually
indicates a masculine words but the word uxor ‘wife’ is clearly feminine (Madvig, 1880, p. 31-
44). In the fourth declension the predominant letter in the endings is u and this group consists of
mostly masculine and neuter words. Words ending in –us are masculine while those ending in –u
are neuter. A handful of words ending in –us are feminine (Madvig, 1880, p. 51-53). The fifth
declension consists of a small number of words which all end in –es in the nominative case. All
the words are feminine except dies which is masculine and feminine in the singular but only
English has case but not to the extent Latin does. Most of the pronouns change spelling to
indicate case marking. ‘You’ is only shown once since the singular and plural forms are the same.
English also has possessive case marked by ’s which is added to the noun that is doing the
possessing. English possessive case refer only to the person who posses and not to te object
possessed.
Example: I am driving John’s car. (John is the person who owns the car)
Apart from these, English has no case and relies on the order of words in a sentence to signal their
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
The nouns in both sentences remain the same with no alteration in spelling and yet they have
different functions in the sentences. It is the word order that tells the readers which is the subject
and which is the object of the sentence. Therefore changing the order of the words will also
It should be noted that English can also have OSV sentence structure but this is a marked order,
which has a different intonations when read or spoken. The verb always follows the subject thus
even in an OSV sentence it is still clear which is the subject and which is the object due to word
order. This particular issue will not be delved into further in this paper.
Case marking and word order are two ways in which a language can indicate the function
of a word in a sentence. Latin opts to go with case marking where case indicates if the noun is the
agent, patient or goal in the sentence. English on the other hand has very limited case markings
and relies heavily on the word order to signal the function of the nouns by which the meaning of
the sentence is given (Goldman, 1985, p. 14). To a non-Latin speaker all the case markings and
declensions may seem more complicated than English thus harder. However clear case markings
guard against ambiguity of sentences, though that can occur in Latin due to exceptions in
markings, and it gives the writer or speaker greater flexibility in sentence construction. English is
restricted by word order and though some movement is possible speakers and writers are still
restricted to a greater degree than in Latin and the most innovative ways of rewording English
sentences are reserved for poets and Yoda. Thus principle of simplicity would point towards
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
Latin being a better choice than English since Latin case markings remove a lot of ambiguity and
The English language has gender but it’s what is called natural gender while Latin has
natural and grammatical gender. Natural gender is based on the actual sexual distinction of an
object while grammatical gender is the distinction of sex where no actual sex exists such as in
Latin assigns gender to all nouns be they objects or abstract ideas. The gender of a word
can usually be deciphered by looking at the ending. The following chart gives the usual endings
(Goldman, 1985, p. 9)
Adjectives also have gender and that depends on the gender of the noun that it describes and
modifies.
There are exceptions where a typically masculine ending will be found on a feminine word and
vice versa. They are exceptions therefore they must be memorized. Also because grammatical
gender is arbitrary, mountain in Latin is masculine while in French it is feminine, they too must be
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
In Modern English much of the gender distinction of old have disappeared but all three can
be found in the English pronoun of the third person. There is the masculine ‘he’, feminine ‘she’
and neuter ‘it’. In nouns gender is not marked in the sense that gender in nouns are not discernable
due to any particular prefix or suffix it is understood based on the natural gender of the object it
refers to. Thus there is nothing in the spelling of Aunt that specifies it as feminine, it is only when
an individual knows it refers to the sister of a parent that they will know the word Aunt is
feminine. A test can be done to see what gender a noun is, just replace it with a pronoun.
In exceptional cases English has grammatical gender where boats, cars and countries are referred
Natural gender can be found in both languages though in Latin gender is always marked
but in English this is not the case. In English we find gender marking in the third person pronouns
with the masculine ‘he’, feminine ‘she’ and neuter ‘it’ but other than that there is no overt
marking. Latin not only has natural gender like English, where the gender depends upon the sex of
the object, but it also has grammatical gender where gender has nothing to do with sex.
Grammatical gender is arbitrary assignment of gender to non-gendered objects such as books and
planes. The arbitrary nature of it makes it necessary for speakers of the language to memorize and
internalize the gender and thus it becomes as natural and natural gender itself. Latin indicates
gender through suffixes added to words and certain endings indicate either masculine, feminine or
neuter. There are exceptions thus speakers and writers of Latin must memorize many exceptions.
If the simplicity principle is applied again it would seem the English method is simpler and better
this time. Rather than trying to memorize if a book should be masculine or feminine it is simpler
to say it is neuter.
3. Tense
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
There are 6 main tenses in English and Latin; present, past, future, present perfect, past
perfect, future perfect. While in English there are often three different forms of a verb for a tense,
Latin only has one. Also tense in Latin is indicated by a suffix attached to the verb stem while in
English it could be attached as a suffix, a combination of verbs to make a verb phrase or a change
In English there are three forms the present tense verb could take and though they have
In Latin on the other hand all three sentences of English would be represented with one verb form;
spectat ‘watching’ with the –at suffix indicating third person masculine singular. In Latin present
tense is often used when talking about something, which has endured for a long time and still
Again in English there are several forms of a verb to indicate that the action had taken
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
The first three are straightforward with the first verb form consisting of one word that indicates
that the action has been completed. The second verb form indicates a progressive past action and
the third emphasizes the completed action. The last three also indicate past tense because perfect
means the action was completed and the moment an action is completed it effectively becomes the
past. “I have walked home” is called a present perfect tense because to have is present tense and
walked is past tense meaning the action has been completed at an unspecified time before right
In Latin attaching the imperfect tense sign –ba to the present stem with and then attaching the
In English future tense is formed with the auxiliary verb shall or will plus the basic form of
the main verb. Shall is usually used for the singular and plural first person and will for the rest.
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
Latin does not use auxiliary verbs to show future tense instead it has two suffixes –bi and –e, that
are attached to the present stem before the personal endings are attached. –bi is used for the 1st and
2nd conjugations and –e for the 3rd and 4th (Goldman, 1985, p. 71).
In English, auxiliaries that indicate future tense is commonly omitted in subordinate propositions
In Latin however the tense cannot be omitted like that and so is found in both clauses:
The present perfect is used to refer to a completed event in an unspecified time that
occurred prior to now. (Madvig, 1880, p. 293). In English the present perfect form consists of an
auxiliary verb and the main verb with the auxiliary marked by present tense and the main verb by
past tense.
I have worked.
| |
| |
present tense past tense
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
In Latin the verb form for the present perfect tense is derived from the third principal part.
1st amō
2nd amāre
3rd amāvī
4th amātum
The third principal part is taken then the final ī is dropped to get the perfect stem to which the
perfect personal endings can be attached to form present perfect tense verbs.
Past perfect is used when two actions occurred at different times in the past and so it
indicates an action completed in the past before another past action or event. English uses the
auxiliary had along with the past participle on the main verb to indicate this.
The Latin term for past perfect is pluperfect and pluperfect tense is formed with the perfect stem
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
Future tense is used to indicate an action that will be completed in the future prior to
another future action. In English the future perfect form is formed with the auxiliaries will have or
shall have plus the past participle on the main verb. Just as in future tense when the future perfect
is used in the main clause it is omitted from the subordinate clause where the future tense is only
implied.
The Latin future perfect is formed with the perfect stem plus the future form suffixes:
English often has several different forms of a verb for a single tense, which have slight variations
in meaning, which allows English to a richer tense referent. Latin on the other hand has only one
verb form for each tense only changing to account case markings. This may cause less confusion
for speakers and readers but it is at the price of losing greater accuracy in talking and tense. In
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
future tense and future perfect tense English omits it from subordinate clause if the main clause
has the tense. In the subordinate clause tense is only implied which may cause confusion for
second language learners of English when they try to understand tense. Latin on the other hand
marks tense in all its clauses leaving no room for confusion as to which tense is meant. Both
English and Latin have their good and bad points when it comes to tense in its grammar thus it
4. Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to describe certain aspects of Latin grammar that are
interesting and in contrast to English. This paper discussed case markings in Latin, which gives
meanings to nouns, pronouns and adjectives within a sentence and the English use of word order
to indicate the function of words within a sentence. It was discussed how Latin case markings
allows it to have varied word orders since the markings indicate the function of the words and not
the word order while English is restricted to specific orders of word for its grammatical function.
This paper also discussed natural and grammatical gender found in Latin and English and
concluded that grammatical gender found in Latin forces its speakers to learn and memorize an
added feature which seems to be unnecessary thus making the grammar more difficult and
complicated than it should be. This paper also discussed the six main tenses and their realizations
in Latin and English. While Latin had one verb form to indicate each tense English had several
forms for many of the tenses giving it a greater accuracy when speaking of the nuances of time.
English however omits future tense in subordinate clauses if the tense is present in the main
clause, which can cause confusion for non-native speakers. Latin on the other hand has tense
marking in all of its clauses at all time. Latin’s grammar is very distinct from English and in some
sense it is easier and harder than English. Latin’s case markings make it easier for readers to know
which part of speech a word is from thus the meaning is less ambiguous no matter what order they
are in. English gender on the other hand is simpler since it takes its gender from nature thus if
something doesn’t have sex it is considered neuter while in Latin everything has gender with or
without a sex. Thus making it more difficult for a second language acquirer since there is no actual
sex to refer to in order to know which gender it is. English and Latin have their own sets of
complications and ease of use and they exemplify to distinct forms of grammar a language could
have.
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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008
References
Goldman, Norma, and Ladislas Szymanski. (1985). English Grammar for Students of Latin. Ann
Madvig, I. N. (1880). Latin Grammar. (Rev. George Woods, Trans.). Boston:Ginn Brothers.
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