Anika Reza Term Paper LALS 3004 A

Carleton University Syntax I

areza2@connect.carleton.ca November 27th, 2008

A Look at Latin Grammar:

As Compared to English

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).

1 Case Markings Versus Word Order

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

relies on word order to convey the function of the nouns in a sentence.

1.1 Latin Case Markings

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:

Examples of Case: Usage:

1. Nominative Case subject or predicate noun
2. Accusative Case direct object or object of preposition
3. Genitive Case possession
4. Dative Case indirect object
5. Ablative Case adverbial expressions or object of preposition

(Goldman, 1985, p. 18)

The occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as case,

gender and number are called Declension. (Goldman, 1985, p. 18)

There are 5 Declensions in Latin; these groupings are made primarily by endings and grammatical

gender.

The Declension Endings for Singulars

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

The Declension Endings for Plurals

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

(Madvig, 1880, p. 24)

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

masculine in the plural (Madvig, 1880, p. 53-54).

1.2 English Case Marking and Word Order

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.

Nominative Case Accusative Case Possessive Case

I know Lisa. Lisa knows me. This is mine.
You know Lisa. Lisa knows you. This is yours.
He knows Lisa. Lisa knows him. This is his.
She knows Lisa. Lisa knows her. This is hers.
It knows Lisa. Lisa knows it. This is its.
We know Lisa. Lisa knows us. This is ours.
They know Lisa. Lisa knows them. This is theirs.

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

function. The following two sentences is an example of this:

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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008

The boy sees the goat in the tree.

Here the boy is seeing, and the goat is the object that is being seen (by the boy).

The goat sees the boy in the tree.

Here the goat is seeing, and the boy is the object that is being seen (by the goat).
(Goldman, 1985, p.14)

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

change the meaning of the sentence.

English Word Order: Subject + Verb + Object

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.

1.3 Comparison and Conclusion

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

give speakers and writers greater flexibility at the same time.

2. Natural and Grammatical Gender

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

chairs and buses (Goldman, 1985, p.7).

2.1 Natural and Grammatical Gender in Latin

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

for masculine, feminine or neuter words.

Masculine Feminine Neuter

-us, -er, -or -a, -ās, -dō, -iō -um, -men, -e, -al, -ar

(Goldman, 1985, p. 9)

Adjectives also have gender and that depends on the gender of the noun that it describes and

modifies.

Examples: vir magnus femina magna

man great woman great
‘a great man’ ‘a great woman’
(Madvig, 1880, p. 20)

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

learned and memorized (Goldman, 1985, p. 8).

2.2 Natural Gender in English

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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.

Example: The boy came home and he was tired. (masculine)

My aunt came for a visit and she gave me a gift. (feminine)
There is a tree in the yard and it is maple. (neuter)
(Goldman, 1985, p. 7)

In exceptional cases English has grammatical gender where boats, cars and countries are referred

to as “she”, in a sentence like “She is a fine ship” (Goldman, 1985, p. 8).

2.3 Comparison and Conclusion

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 spelling of the verb (1982, 64).

Tenses Latin English

Present amō I love, I do love, I am loving
Past amābam I loved, I did love, I was loving
Future amābo I shall love, I am going to love
Present Perfect amāvī I have loved
Pluperfect (past perfect) amaveram I had loved
Future Perfect amavero I shall have loved
Present Infinitive amāre to love
Perfect Infinitive amāvīsse to have loved
Present Passive Infinitive amāri to be loved
Perfect Passive Infinitive amātus to have been loved

(Goldman, 1985, p. 52-55)

3.1 Present Tense

In English there are three forms the present tense verb could take and though they have

slightly different meaning all of them indicate the present tense.

Tim watches television. Simple Present

Tim is watching television. Present Progressive
Tim does watch television. Present Emphatic.
(Goldman, 1985, p. 64)

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

continues such as a river flowing (Madvig, 1880, p. 289).

3.2 Past Tense

Again in English there are several forms of a verb to indicate that the action had taken

place in the past.

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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008

I walked home. Simple Past

I was walking home. Past Progressive
I did walk home. Past Emphatic
I have walked home. Present Perfect
I had walked home. Past Perfect
I shall have walked home. Future Perfect
(Goldman, 1985, p. 65)

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

now. Thus present perfect has a past in it (Goldman, 1985, p. 65).

In Latin attaching the imperfect tense sign –ba to the present stem with and then attaching the

personal endings, forms the past tense.

amā + –ba + –m = amābam

| | | |
| | | |
present stem imperfect tense sign 1st person personal ending past tense

(Goldman, 1985, p. 65)

3.3 Future Tense

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.

I shall go home. We shall go to work.

He will go to the park. They will go to the park.

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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).

cantā + –bi + –(ī)t = cantābit

| | | |
| | | |
present stem tense sign 3rd person singular ending future tense

audi + –e + –(ēru)nt = audient

| | | |
| | | |
present stem tense sign 3rd person plural ending future tense

In English, auxiliaries that indicate future tense is commonly omitted in subordinate propositions

if it is found in the main proposition:

If we follow the car you will have to drive slowly.

In Latin however the tense cannot be omitted like that and so is found in both clauses:

Naturam si seqvemur ducem numqvam aberrabimus. (translation not given in text)

(Madvig, 1880, p. 295)

3.4 Present Perfect

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

(Goldman, 1985, p. 64)

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.

amāvī  amāv + –it = amāvit.

| | | |
| | | |
3rd principal part perfect stem 3rd person singular ending present perfect

(Goldman, 1985, p. 64)

3.5 Past Perfect

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.

She suddenly remembered she had not eaten all day.

| |________|
| |
past tense past perfect
(Goldman, 1985, p. 69)

The Latin term for past perfect is pluperfect and pluperfect tense is formed with the perfect stem

plus the imperfect form suffixes:

Personal Singular Plural

1st –eram –erāmus
2nd –erās –erātis
3rd –erat –erant

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Latin Grammar Anika Reza November 27th, 2008

amāv + –erat = amāverat (he had loved)

| | |
| | |
perfect stem 3rd person singular pluperfect form

(Goldman, 1985, p. 70)

3.6 Future Perfect

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.

[I will have left] [by the time John arrives.]

| |
future perfect present future action
| |
main clause subordinate clause

(Goldman, 1985, p. 73)

The Latin future perfect is formed with the perfect stem plus the future form suffixes:

Personal Singular Plural

1st –ero –erimus
2nd –eris –eritis
3rd –erit –erint

amāv + –erit = amāverit (he will have loved)

| | |
| | |
perfect stem 3rd person singular pluperfect form

(Goldman, 1985, p. 73)

3.7 Comparison and Conclusion

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

cannot be said one is perhaps simpler than the other.

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

Arbor: The Olivia and Hill Press, Inc.

Madvig, I. N. (1880). Latin Grammar. (Rev. George Woods, Trans.). Boston:Ginn Brothers.

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