As a way into the next topic …
Welcome to P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth. The visitors packed the
museum and would have been fascinated to see the “egress” … but what did they
see? Yes, the “Greatest Showman” used a bit of Latin to hoodwink them!
Visitors to P.T. Barnum’s
museum would stay there all day. This affected the profits because they
couldn’t take in more visitors. In true Barnum style, he hit on the idea of a
sign pointing to the egress. Of course, people headed for that
attraction, not knowing that egress is another word for ‘exit’
from Latin, ēgressus, a fourth declension noun.
And we’ll move from Barnum
to an argument …
in nomine patris,
filiī et spiritūs sanctī
in the name ¦ of the
father ¦ (and) of the son and ¦ of the holy
spirit
This caused a mini civil war
in another FB group where one member insisted that spiritūs was
wrong, that it should be spiritī because spiritus,
since it ends in -us, is second declension.
The member was not correct;
spiritūs is right. Spiritus is a fourth declension noun.
But I can see why he thought the way he did.
Regardless of your beliefs,
the above phrase is handy to know because it shows you three declensions in the
one phrase:
- fīlius, genitive
singular filiī: 2nd declension [-ī]
- pater, genitive
singular patris: 3rd declension [-is]
- spiritus, genitive
singuar spiritūs: 4th declension [-ūs]
Those genitive singular
endings are crucial because they absolutely mark the declension to which a noun
belongs:
- -ī [2nd
declension]
- -is [3rd
declension]
and, the new one:
- -ūs with
long /ū/ [4th declension]
Compare these three:
populus (people),
opus (work), senātus (senate).
There is no way of working
out to which declension these three belong unless you learn the word along with
its genitive singular. That will always tell you the
declension.
- populus, -ī [2nd
declension]
- opus, operis [3rd
declension]
- senātus, senātūs [4th
declension]
In Classical Latin writing
no macron was used, and so both the nominative and genitive look the same, but
are pronounced differently. Most edited texts, and schoolbooks will use the
macron to avoid confusion in meaning, and so it’s useful to keep it there:
senātus [nominative], senātūs [genitive]
So, in SENĀTUS POPULUSQUE
RŌMĀNUS, senātus is 4thdeclension, and populus is
2nd declension.
4th declension nouns are far
fewer in number than the other massive groups of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd
declension; they were all covered in earlier posts. Nevertheless, there are
some nouns which commonly occur in the literature. Most 4th declension nouns are
masculine; if any are feminine, they have the same endings. [image #1]
cursus, -ūs [4/m]: running;
race; career
flūctus, -ūs [4/m]: wave
frūctus, -ūs [4/m]: fruit
gradus, -ūs [4/m]: step;
stair
habitus, -ūs [4/m]:
character; habit; dress; attire
lacus, -ūs [4/m]: lake
manus, -ūs [4/f]: hand
metus -ūs [4/m]: fear
questus, -ūs [4/m]:
complaint
spīritus, -ūs [4/m]: air;
breath; breathing; spirit
ululātus, -ūs [4/m]: wailing
ūsus, -ūs [4/m]: use; habit
vultus, -ūs [4/m]: face;
facial expression
There are few neuter
nouns of the fourth declension [genū, -ūs 4/n: knee; pecū,
-ūs 4/n: cattle]; they are distinguishable from masculine and feminine
nouns by having -ū in the nominative singular. [image #2]
cornū, -ūs [4/n]:
horn
genū, -ūs [4/n]: knee
pecū, -ūs [4/n]:
cattle
The tables are posted for
reference but, over the next few posts, I'll talk about some of the useful
vocabulary that's in the 4th declension.
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