2.5 The Six Cases at a Glance — Epoché
What you will be able to do Name the six cases and say in English what each one is for. Translate a case into the English preposition or construction that does its job. Guess the case of an unfamiliar ending from the shape of the sentence. Say which case has no English equivalent at all, and why that will take a whole lesson later. Read sentences like Deus sum. [39] — I'm a god. — without looking anything up. Prerequisites : 2.4 — the second-declension neuter. Three lessons have given you thirty-six endings without ever saying properly what they are for. That was deliberate: the endings are easier to learn as chants than as concepts, and the chants had to come first. Now the concepts. This lesson has no new forms in it at all — it is a lesson about meaning, and it is the one to come back to whenever a case stops making sense. The table The six cases, with the job each does and the English that does the same job. Case Its job English equivalent nominative the subject; and anything equated with it position before the verb; he , she , who genitive of — belonging, part of, made of, characteristic of of , or 's dative to or for whom — the one interested in the action to , for ; or the indirect object with no preposition accusative the direct object; also extent and direction position after the verb; him , her , whom ablative by, with, from, in — means, manner, place, separation ★ no single English equivalent vocative calling someone direct address, usually with a comma And the same six worked through on one noun, so you can see the whole system moving at once. Latin English Fēmina vīnum dat. The woman gives the wine. — fēmina nominative dōnum fēminae the woman's gift — fēminae genitive Fīlius fēminae vīnum dat. The son gives the wine to the woman. — fēminae dative Fīlius fēminam videt. The son sees the woman. — fēminam accusative Vīnum ā fēminā datur. The wine is given by the woman. — fēminā ablative Fēmina, vīnum dā! Woman, give the wine! — fēmina vocative How to read the table Take the cases in order of how much trouble they cause an English speaker, which is not the order of the chant. The nominative and accusative are free. You already have them: subject and object, he and him . The only new thing is that Latin marks them on nouns as well as pronouns, which is what lesson 2.1 was about. Do not spend effort here. The genitive is nearly free. "Of" covers almost all of it, and English has a second way of saying the same thing with 's . What English does not have is the range: the Latin genitive also covers "made of", "consisting of", "characterised by", and a "genitive of the charge" used with verbs of accusing. Those are extensions of one idea and you will pick them up by reading. Lesson 3.4 sorts them. The dative is where the first real difference appears. English has an indirect object, so he gave the woman the wine feels natural. But the Latin dative is wider than that: it marks the person concerned , whether or not anything is handed over. Mihi placet is "it pleases to-me", which English renders as "I like it" — the person is in the dative and the thing is the subject, exactly backwards from English. And mihi est plus a nominative means "I have": liber mihi est is "there is a book to me", which is how Latin often says possession. Lesson 3.5 is about all of this, and it is worth expecting the strangeness now rather than being surprised by it. The ablative has no English equivalent, and that is the honest statement. It is the case Latin made by collapsing three older cases together, and it does at least five different jobs: the means by which ( with a sword ), the manner in which ( with courage ), the place where ( in the field ), the point from which ( from the city ), and the agent by whom ( by the woman ). English uses four different prepositions for those, and Latin uses one case, sometimes with a preposition and sometimes without. There is no shortcut, which is why lesson 3.6 is the longest lesson in the Syntax volume and why it is marked in the syllabus as the place English speakers should expect to slow down. The vocative is trivial and worth one sentence. It is the form for calling someone, identical to the nominative everywhere except the masculine singular of the second declension. Lesson 3.10 uses it. One structural remark, which is the real content of this lesson. The six cases are not six arbitrary labels. Four of them are about the noun's relation to the verb — who acts, who is acted on, who is concerned, and by what means — and one, the genitive, is about the noun's relation to another noun . That is why the genitive is the case that most often sits next to another noun rather than near the verb, and it is a useful thing to know when you are trying to work out which of two nouns is which. Seen in real Latin Twelve sentences from the corpus. For each, name the case of the marked word before reading the third column. Latin English Case Aqua est. [1] It's water. nominative — the subject Aquam volo. [2] I want water. accusative — the object Hoc non est verbum Dei. [3] This is not the word of God. Deī genitive — attached to another noun Hoc mihi non placet. [4] I don't like this. mihi dative — "it does not please to me" Hoc mihi non est. [5] This isn't mine. mihi dative of possession — "this is not to me" Nemo in terra mea opus facit. [6] Nobody works in my country. terrā ablative of place — with in Nihil de te scio. [7] I know nothing about you. tē ablative after dē Quid est nomen tibi? [8] What is your name? tibi dative — "what is the name to you?" Aqua nobis opus est. [9] We need water. nōbīs dative, aqua nominative Ubi es, pater? [10] Father, where are you? pater vocative — identical to the nominative here Ego sum, qui sum. [11] I am who I am. two nominatives, in two clauses Illud verbum nescio. [12] I don't know that word. accusative — neuter, so the verb decides The fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth are the same construction four times, and it is worth seeing them together b