[1] Referring to:
19.02.24: gender
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinforstarters/posts/394339326510675/
20.02.24 agreement; hic,
haec, hoc [1]
https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinforstarters/posts/394529313158343/
[2] Latin nouns
have gender – masculine, feminine, neuter – in the same way that, for
example, French has le (masculine) and la (feminine), and German:
der (masculine), die (feminine), das (neuter). Knowing the
gender of a noun is important because other words e.g. adjectives will agree
i.e. change their endings depending on the gender. ‘Gender’ does not simply
apply to animate nouns (man, girl etc.) but also to inanimate
nouns e.g. objects: French voiture (car) is feminine whereas autobus
(bus) is masculine. Incidentally, the German Mädchen (girl) is neuter! And
for those of us who learned these languages, that can be a bit of a headache
because it is often not the case that you can know the gender simply by looking
at the word – as my old French teacher said with a triumphant grin: “You just
have to learn them!”
[3] Latin, however
– and Russian – are more user-friendly because, for thousands of nouns, you can
identify the gender from its ending. Now, that isn’t a 100% guarantee – but don’t run before you can walk. The nouns
that are primarily dealt with at the beginners’ stage belong to two declensions;
that term refers to different groups of nouns which share the same endings.
[4] The nouns in the
presentation belong to these two groups, known as the first and second
declension
First
Declension: nouns ending
in -a; most are feminine (a few are masculine when they refer to
occupations traditionally associated with males)
Second
Declension:
[i] nouns ending
in -us; most are masculine (a handful are feminine, and that is always
pointed out in vocabulary lists)
[ii] nouns ending
in -um; neuter
[5] In the
presentation, there are no ‘curve balls’ -us: masculine; -a:
feminine; -um: neuter
[6] You can see
how the gender affects words that refer to that noun:
hic: this (masculine); hic est gladius
│ this is a sword
haec: this (feminine); haec est pecūnia
│ this is money
hoc: this (neuter); hoc est templum
│ this is a temple
[7] Key terms:
gender
masculine /
feminine / neuter
declension
first / second
declension
agreement
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