2.9 Adjectives of the First and Second Declension — Epoché
What you will be able to do Decline bonus, bona, bonum in all three genders. Say which noun endings an adjective uses for each gender, and why they are not new. Match an adjective to a noun that belongs to a different declension. Recognise an adjective used on its own as a noun. Read sentences like Caelum magnum est. [44] — The sky is big. — without looking anything up. Prerequisites : 2.8 — sum and the nominative on both sides. A Latin adjective has to agree with its noun in three things at once: gender, number and case. That sounds like a large new burden. It is not, because the endings are ones you already know — the first declension for the feminine and the second for the masculine and neuter. This lesson is therefore mostly recognition, and the one genuinely new idea is that agreement does not require the two words to be next to each other. The table Case Masculine Feminine Neuter nominative sg bonus bona bonum genitive sg bonī bonae bonī dative sg bonō bonae bonō accusative sg bonum bonam bonum ablative sg bonō bonā bonō nominative pl bonī bonae bona genitive pl bonōrum bonārum bonōrum dative pl bonīs bonīs bonīs accusative pl bonōs bonās bona ablative pl bonīs bonīs bonīs Read the three columns as three things you have already learned: the masculine is amīcus , the feminine is puella , the neuter is dōnum . Nothing in this table is new except its arrangement. How to read the table The dictionary entry gives three forms. bonus, bona, bonum — usually abbreviated bonus, -a, -um — and that shape tells you it is a first-and-second-declension adjective. Adjectives of the third declension exist and have a different shape in the dictionary ( mōbilis, mōbile , or omnis, omne ); they wait until the second phase. The -er adjectives behave like the -er nouns. pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum drops the e after the nominative singular masculine, exactly as ager does. And miser, misera, miserum keeps it, exactly as puer does. The feminine form in the dictionary entry tells you which: pulchra against misera . Agreement is three things at once, and they are independent. Phrase Gender, number, case puella bona feminine, singular, nominative puellam bonam feminine, singular, accusative puellārum bonārum feminine, plural, genitive amīcus bonus masculine, singular, nominative dōna bona neuter, plural, nominative or accusative But the endings need not look alike. This is the point of the lesson, and the place where English speakers go wrong. Agreement is a matter of gender, number and case — not of having the same letters. When the noun and the adjective belong to different declensions, the endings differ: Phrase Why the endings differ nauta bonus nauta is 1st declension but masculine, so the adjective is 2nd declension poēta bonus the same: a masculine noun with feminine-looking endings manus bona manus is 4th declension and feminine, so the adjective is 1st pater bonus pater is 3rd declension and masculine, so the adjective is 2nd corpus bonum corpus is 3rd declension and neuter, so the adjective is 2nd So nauta bonus is correct Latin and nauta bona is not, although the second looks more consistent. If you take one thing from this lesson, take that: match the grammar, not the spelling. An adjective alone can be a noun. Latin does this constantly, and the gender tells you what kind of thing is meant. bonī masculine plural is "good men"; bona neuter plural is "good things", and therefore "goods, property"; bonum neuter singular is "the good" in the philosophical sense. Whole arguments in Cicero and Aquinas turn on the neuter singular used this way, and English has borrowed one of them wholesale — summum bonum , the highest good. Seen in real Latin Latin English The agreement Puella pulchra est. [1] The girl is beautiful. feminine singular nominative, both words Aqua pulchra est. [2] The water is beautiful. the same, with a different noun Domus pulchra est. [3] The house is beautiful. ★ domus is 4th declension, feminine — the adjective is 1st Feles magna est. [4] The cat is big. fēlēs is 3rd declension, feminine Haec magna sunt. [5] These are great. neuter plural — the adjective stands as a noun Vinum bonum non est. [6] The wine isn't good. neuter singular, both words Illud vinum bonum est. [7] That wine is good. three neuter words agreeing at once Mater mea pulchra est. [8] My mother is beautiful. māter 3rd declension; mea and pulchra both 1st Canis magna est. [9] The dog is large. canis can be either gender; here feminine Domus mea magna est. [10] My house is big. 4th-declension noun, two 1st-declension adjectives The third and tenth are the ones to study. domus ends in -us , which looks masculine and second-declension, and it is neither: it is fourth declension and feminine. So domus pulchra and domus mea magna are correct, and domus pulcher would be wrong. Nothing about the spelling of the noun tells you this. Only the dictionary does, which is why every word list in this course prints the gender. The seventh shows three words agreeing at once: illud that, vīnum wine, bonum good — all neuter, all singular, all nominative. Latin does this without strain and at any distance, which is the subject of the next lesson. New words Word (dictionary form) Meaning Note bonus la good; brave; useful Part of speech adjective ( bona, bonum ) How it differs from English the neuter bonum alone means "the good" in philosophy Vinum bonum non est. The wine isn't good. Illud vinum bonum est. That wine is good. magnus la big, great, loud, important Part of speech adjective ( magna, magnum ) How it differs from English covers size and importance together; hooks: magnitude , magnify Feles magna est. The cat is big. Haec magna sunt. These are great. parvus la small, little; slight Part of speech adjective ( parva, parvum ) How it differs from English the opposite of magnus in both senses pulcher la beautiful, handsome, fine Part of speech adjective ( pulchra, pulchrum ) How it differs from English drops the e after the masculine