Lesson 14 · Review
Nine new words: six nouns — auxilium (help), castrum (fort; in the plural, castra = camp), cibus (food), cōnsilium (plan), dīligentia (diligence), and magister (teacher) — plus three -er adjectives, aeger (sick), crēber (frequent), and miser (wretched). Note that magister is a master in the sense of teacher, whereas dominus is a master in the sense of owner.
English has two words for ownership — the adjective my ("my shield") and the pronoun mine ("the shield is mine"). Latin uses a single family of possessives for both. They behave like the first- and second-declension adjectives you already know, and the one rule that trips up English speakers is that a possessive agrees with the thing OWNED, never with the owner.
Singular owners: meus, mea, meum (my); tuus, tua, tuum (your); suus, sua, suum (his/her/its own). Plural owners: noster, nostra, nostrum (our); vester, vestra, vestrum (your); suus, sua, suum (their own). Each takes the ordinary endings — meus like bonus, noster like pulcher (dropping the e outside the nominative).
One exception: meus has the irregular vocative singular masculine mī — mī fīlī, "O my son."
Like any adjective, a possessive matches its noun in gender, number, and case — and that noun is the thing owned, so the sex of the owner is irrelevant. The same suum serves a man or a woman.
Sextus suum puerum vocat / Iūlia suum puerum vocat — Sextus / Julia is calling his / her boy (suum agrees with puerum, masc. acc. sg., either way).
When your refers to a single person use tuus; when it refers to more than one use vester. Both still agree in gender, number, and case with the thing possessed.
Corōnae tuae, Lesbia — your wreaths, Lesbia; Corōnae vestrae, puellae — your wreaths, girls.
The third-person suus regularly refers to the subject of its own sentence and can mean nothing else. His, her, their that refer to someone OTHER than the subject are expressed differently (a later lesson).
Vir suōs servōs vocat — The man calls his (own) slaves; suōs must mean the man's own.
When the meaning is already clear, Latin simply leaves the possessive out — especially suus. When suus IS written in, it is more or less emphatic, like English "his own, her own."
Vir servōs vocat normally already means "the man calls his slaves"; adding suōs stresses his OWN.
Six out of six before you start the exercises.
Question 1
In Sextus suum puerum vocat ("Sextus is calling his boy"), the form suum agrees with —
Right. A possessive agrees with the thing POSSESSED in gender, number, and case (Rule 2). suum is masculine accusative singular to match puerum — the owner Sextus has no say in its form.
Not quite — a possessive is an adjective. Which noun in the sentence does it describe: the owner, or the thing owned?
Question 2
Julia is calling her daughter — fīliam (feminine accusative singular). The word for "her" is —
Right. suus must match the thing possessed, fīliam, which is feminine accusative singular (Rule 2) — so the form is suam: Iūlia suam fīliam vocat.
Not quite — make suus agree with fīliam. What is the feminine accusative singular ending?
Question 3
Speaking to several girls: "your wreaths are pretty." Fill the blank — Corōnae _____, puellae, sunt pulchrae.
Right. "Your" refers to more than one person (puellae), so Latin uses vester (Rule 3); agreeing with corōnae (fem. nom. pl.) it becomes vestrae.
Not quite — you are addressing more than one girl. Which possessive does Latin use when the owners are plural?
Question 4
Speaking to one girl, Lesbia: "your wreaths are pretty." Fill the blank — Corōnae _____, Lesbia, sunt pulchrae.
Right. "Your" here refers to a single person (Lesbia), so Latin uses tuus (Rule 3); agreeing with corōnae (fem. nom. pl.) it becomes tuae.
Not quite — you are addressing only one person. Which possessive does Latin use for a single owner?
Question 5
In Vir suōs servōs vocat, whose slaves does the man call?
Right. suus is reflexive: it points back to the subject of its own sentence (Rule 4). Here the subject is vir, so suōs can only mean the man's own slaves.
Not quite — recall what "reflexive" means. To whom in the sentence must suus refer?
Question 6
"Our plan" — cōnsilium is neuter. The correct form of "our" (nominative) is —
Right. noster must agree with the neuter noun cōnsilium (Rules 1–2); the neuter nominative singular is nostrum: cōnsilium nostrum.
Not quite — cōnsilium is neuter. What is the neuter nominative singular of noster, nostra, nostrum?
Answered correctly: 0 / 6