CHAPTER 5 "First and Second Conjugations: Future Indicative Active; Adjectives of the First and Second Declension in -er" FUTURE TENSE OF FIRST AND SECOND CONJUGATION VERBS When you want to put an English verb into the future tense, you use the stem of the verb and put "will" in front of it: "I see" becomes "I will see"; "They have" becomes "They will have"; etc. We call the additional word "will" a "helping verb", or, more learnedly, an "auxiliary verb". No matter what you call it, the "will" is modifying the way the listener will understand the action of the verb "to see" and "to have". In Latin, the future tense is formed differently, but it still involves the addition of something to the stem of the verb. The formula for forming the future tense of first and second conjugation verbs in Latin is this: "stem + be + personal endings". The stem of the verb, you remember, is what's left after you've dropped off the "-re" of the infinitive (the stem includes the stem vowel). The "-be-" is the sign of the future and is attached directly to the stem. Then you add the normal personal endings you used in the present tense directly to the tense sign "be". So let's start to conjugate the future tense of a first and second conjugation verb. Here are the tables. (Don't fill in the conjugated form just yet.) I. FUTURE OF THE FIRST CONJUGATION: laudo, laudare STEM + TENSE SIGN + PERS. END. = CONJUGATED FORM _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ II. FUTURE OF THE SECOND CONJUGATION: moneo, monere STEM + TENSE SIGN + PERS. END. = CONJUGATED FORM _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ _________ + __________ + _____________ = _______________ All this seems quite logical and straight-forward. But these is one glitch: the short "-e-" of the tense sign "-be-" undergoes some radical changes when you start attaching the personal endings. (1) Before the "-o" of the first person singular, the short "-e-" disappears completely, leaving "-bo". (2) Before the "-nt" of the third person plural, it becomes a "-u-", leaving the form "-bunt". (3) And before all the other endings, it becomes an "-i-", for "-bis", "-bit", "-bimus", and "-bitis". As you can see, the short "-e-" in fact never stays what it is in any of these forms. And you may very well be wondering to yourself why I'm showing you all this. Why can't you simply memorize the future endings as "-bo", "-bis", "-bit", "-bimus", "-bitis", and "-bunt", without having to look any farther back into its history. The answer is you can certainly remember just the final forms if you wish, but this problem of the short "-e-" changing to other vowels occurs repeatedly in Latin, and instead of memorizing by rote each time you come across it, it just seems easier to learn the rule governing the changes, rather than encountering the changes each time as unique phenomena. It's hard to believe now, but knowing the deeper rules will make your lives simpler in the future. Now that you know the rules, go back and fill in the conjugated forms of the future tense. FIRST AND SECOND DECLENSION ADJECTIVES IN -ER Look at this adjective: "stultus, -a, -um". Do you remember what this entry is telling you? An adjective spans the first and second declensions to get the endings it needs to modify nouns of different genders. This entry is telling you that the adjective for "stupid" (stem: "stult-") uses second declension "-us" type endings when it modifies masculine nouns, first declension endings when it modifies feminine nouns, and the "-um" category of neuter endings of the second declension to modify neuter nouns. Now let's look a little more closely at the second declension. It has two parts, you may remember: the section reserved entirely for neuter nouns -- those ending in "-um" in the nominative singular -- and the section used by masculine and feminine nouns (the vast majority are masculine). There is a variety of nominative singular endings in this second group: "-us", "-er", and "-ir". The nouns which followed the "-us" type second declension presented two problems: to find the stem, you simply dropped off the "-us" ending of the nominative case. But for the second declension nouns which ended in "-er" in the nominative singular, you had to be more careful. For some of them, the stem was the form of the nominative singular, but for others the "-e-" of the "-er" dropped out from the stem. Then you used the reduced form for all the other cases. The dictionary has to tell you which "-er" ending nouns had stem changes, and it does so in the in second entry for the noun. puer, -i (m) liber, -bri (m) ager, agri (m) The stem of "puer" is "puer-", the stem of "liber" is "libr-", the stem of "ager" is "agr-". Okay, so much by way of review. Now look at this word as it appears in the dictionary: "liber, -a, -um". What is this? Is it a noun or an adjective? You can tell it's an adjective because there is no gender listed for it. (Remember, an adjective has to be able to change its gender, so it has no fixed gender, as a noun does.) An entry for an adjective has to tell you how it will acquire different genders -- which declensional pattern it will use to become masculine, feminine and neuter -- and, you may recall, the first entry shows you the masculine nominative, the second the feminine nominative, and the third the neuter nominative. So have a look again at this adjective. The second entry looks familiar -- it's the nominative singular ending of the first declension. This tells you that the adjective "liber" become feminine by using first declension endings. The "-um" should look familiar, too. That's its neuter ending, telling you it uses the "-um" endings of the second declension to modify neuter nouns. But what's the first entry? You know that this is telling you how the adjective becomes masculine, but what about the "-er". You've probably already figured out by now that the adjective is going to use the second declension endings to modify masculine nouns, and that it's going to use the "-er" ending in the nominative singular. So for "free soul", you would write "liber animus". But what is the stem of the adjective? Remember that "-er" ending nouns of the second declension often change their stems when they move out of the nominative singular. The dictionary tells you about that in the second entry for the adjective in the genitive singular. That is, the dictionary actually starts declining it for you. But how will it tell you whether an adjective in "-er" has a stem change? The rule is this. An adjective in "-er" which changes its stem (i.e., drops the "-e") will use the changed stem in all genders and numbers and cases except for the nominative masculine singular. So all you need to see to know whether the adjective is going to change its stem is the next entry -- the feminine nominative singular -- to know about the stem. Look at this entry. M F N pulcher, -chra, -chrum There, do you see it? The second entry shows you not only how the adjective becomes feminine, but also that the stem for all other cases except the masculine nominative singular is "pulchr-". Look as this adjective: "noster, nostra, nostrum". Stem change, right? Now look at this again: "liber, -a, -um". There is no stem change since it is not indicated in the second entry. So the stem is "liber-" throughout its inflection. Let's do a few exercises. Translate and decline the following. beautiful fatherland our son Nom. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Gen. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Dat. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Acc. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Abl. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Voc. ______________ ______________ N/V. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Gen. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Dat. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Acc. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Abl. ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ VOCABULARY PUZZLES animus, -i (m) In the singular the word means "soul, spirit", the vapory seat of self-awareness. But in the plural it often takes on another meaning. It may mean "courage", like our expression "high spirits", "spirited", as in "The losing team put up a spirited struggle". It happens often in Latin that a word will acquire new meanings in the plural. C.p., the meaning of the English word "manner" in the singular with its meaning in the plural: "manners". noster, -tra, -trum This is an adjective which means "our". That is, the adjective agrees with the thing that is "ours". Therefore, it has a plural form only if the noun it's agreeing with is plural. Students are often lured into thinking that "noster" will have only plural case endings because "our" is first person plural. Remember, "noster" will have plural cases endings only if it's agreeing with a plural noun: "noster filius" (our son) or "nostri filii" (our sons). igitur Wheelock tells you it's post-positive: it never is the first word in a Latin sentence (and it's usually the second word.) Despite our tendency to put the English "therefore" at the beginning of the sentence, "igitur" is never first. Remember. -ne We form questions in English by juggling word order around, and by using auxiliary verbs. But Latin doesn't have that option since word order doesn't work in the same way. To ask a question in Latin, put "-ne" at the end of the first word of the sentence. The word to which it is attached becomes the point of inquiry of the question: "Amasne me?" (Do you love me?), "Mene amas?" (Is it me you love (and not someone else)?) propter + acc. As you know, prepositions in Latin take certain cases. "Propter" takes the accusative case -- always -- and we translate it, "because of". Don't be thrown off by our English translation. "Propter" does not take the genitive case in Latin. It takes the accusative. satis When we say "I have enough money", we use "enough" as an adjective modifying "money". In Latin the word for "enough" is a noun, not an adjective. Latin follows "satis" with the genitive case, and says in effect "I have enough of money" (Habeo satis pecuniae.) You'll be pleased to know that "satis" does not decline -- it is always "satis". 12/31/92