(1) You have already seen that the ending -ae can be used in three different ways:
[i] Genitive singular
Poēta incola Americae est. | The poet is an inhabitant of
America.
[ii] Dative singular
Agricola fīliae meae epistulam dat. | The farmer
gives a letter to my daughter.
[iii] Nominative plural
Parvae puellae fābulās amant. | The little
girls love stories.
(2) This can be a challenge, yet English can present a similar
challenge. Say these four words:
I – eye – aye! – (the letter) i
I have a sore eye. The word aye
isn’t written with an i.
Similarly:
I’ll drop by the supermarket and buy some fruit.
Those examples are written differently but all pronounced
the same.
However, look at these examples. The words have the same
spelling but have different pronunciations and different meanings.
I often read. Yesterday I read a really good
book.
This pipe is made of lead. I take the dog out on a lead.
Sometimes, the same word – both written and pronounced
identically – has different meanings:
He’s very mean. What do you mean?
The last example best illustrates the point:
We understand what mean means – when we read the word
or hear it – from context i.e. the word does not stand alone, but is
surrounded by other words which clarify exactly what is being referred to.
(3)
[i] At the beginning of the study of Latin, sentences are
often short, a particular ending only appearing in a single word or phrase:
Parvae puellae [nominative] ¦ fābulās amant.
- (Who loves?) The little girls ¦ love the stories.
Poēta incola ¦ Americae [genitive] ¦ est.
- The poet is an inhabitant (of what?) of America.
Pecūniam [accusative] agricolae [dative] dō.
- I give ¦ (what?) money ¦ (to whom?) to the farmer.
[ii] The passages, however, show that the same ending can
appear more than once in the same sentence but with different usage and
meaning:
Incolae [nominative] ¦ īnsulae [genitive]
¦ nautae [nominative] sunt.
- The inhabitants ¦ (of what?) of the
island ¦ are (what?) sailors.
Cornēlia ¦ fīliae [dative] ¦ agricolae [genitive]
¦ pictūram [accusative] ostendit.
- Cornelia shows (what?) a picture ¦ (to whom?) ¦ to the daughter ¦ (whose daughter?) of the farmer.
Becoming familiar with this feature of Latin takes time,
regular reading and, as a back-up, references to translations. At the outset,
it is best to work out the subject of the sentence and the verb.
That will provide the key context:
Cornelia puellae parvae casam agricolae mōnstrat.
Who is performing the action and what
is the subject doing?
- Cornēlia [nominative] puellae parvae
casam agricolae mōnstrat.
- Cornelia points out …
What does she point out?
- Cornēlia puellae parvae casam [accusative] agricolae mōnstrat.
- Cornelia points out the cottage …
Whose cottage?
- Cornēlia puellae parvae casam agricolae [genitive] mōnstrat.
- Cornelia points out the farmer’s cottage …
To whom does she point it out?
- Cornēlia puellae parvae [dative] casam agricolae mōnstrat.
- Cornelia points out the farmer’s cottage to the little girl.
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