13.03.24: Daily routine [1]; the principal parts of verbs

Talking about daily routine is useful from three perspectives:

[i] It allows you to talk more at length.

[ii] It reinforces common vocabulary.

And …

[iii] It shows you that, when reading any text in Latin, cases and - our focus here - verb conjugations, are thrown at you from all sides!

The images show you activities that you might do māne (in the morning). Have a look through them and then read the notes below.

[1] Mē lavō: I wash myself; mē is a reflexive pronoun and is used when the action is being done to oneself. English can be vague about this: “What are you doing?” “I’m washing” – by implication “myself”. French and German, however, are explicit in conveying the reflexive idea: Je me lave; ich wasche mich.

The same idea is expressed in:

• mē exerceō: I train myself (as opposed to you training gladiators)

[2] per + accusative: (here) by means of; it also has the meaning of 'through'

[3] pōculum ¦ aquae bibō: I drink a ‘glass’ ¦ of water; remember that the genitive case is used when expressing quantities. We’ll do more practice on that in a later post.

[4] librōs ¦ in sacculō ¦ pōnō: I put the books in (my) bag; this seems to contradict what was stated in an earlier post that the preposition in takes the accusative when there is movement from one place to another i.e. putting books into a bag. However, in Latin, the verb does not in itself convey any sense of movement e.g. hurrying or entering or going and so the ablative is used i.e. in which location is something placed.

• Sextus sacculum in mensā [ablative] pōnit. Sextus puts the bag on the table.

[5] The verb discedere means ‘to leave; depart’ and is normally used with the preposition ā / ab (away):

• Mercātor ab oppidō discēdit. The merchant leaves the town = The merchant goes away from the town.

The noun domus, however – and a small group of other nouns that needn’t concern us at this stage – does its own thing! It uses an ablative case without a preposition to convey “from home”:

• Domō discedō. I leave home (i.e. I leave from home / the house)

Here are two other important concepts with this particular word (and a few others):

• Galba domum properat. Galbus hurries (to) home. When going to the house / home the accusative case without a preposition is used.
• Galba domī manet. Galba is staying at home. Now, for the moment, simply learn that word domī; it is a special form which, again, is not of concern just now.

Principal parts

Here comes the “science”. It’s vital to get a grip on verbs.

The image is colour coded according to the 3 conjugations that have already been introduced. Take a look at how these verbs have been listed below:

first conjugation

• intrō, intrāre [1]: enter
• lavō, lavāre [1]: wash
• properō, properāre [1]: hurry

second conjugation

• exerceō, exercēre [2]: train; exercise

third conjugation

• bibō, bibere [3]: drink
• coquō, coquere [3]: cook (bake; boil; roast; fry)
• dēscendō, dēscendere [3]: come down; descend
• induō, induere [3]: put on (e.g. clothes)
• pōnō, pōnere [3]: put
• sūmō, sūmere [3]: take
• surgō, surgere [3]: rise (from bed); get up

How these have been listed is the beginning of what is called the principal parts of a verb.

In the next post, what this means and why it’s crucial will be explained.