Lesson 39 · Review
Ten of these twelve words are third-declension nouns, and every one of them must be learned with its genitive attached — the nominative alone will not tell you how to decline it.
Two look-alikes that mean different things. Pēs, pedis is a foot; pedes, peditis is a foot soldier. And in pēs note the quantity: the e is long in the nominative singular but short in every other case — pēs, but pedis, pedem, pede.
You have used the word "base" since the first declension. Now a second term is needed, because the third declension is named after something the first two are not.
| Word | Base | Stem | Declension is named… |
|---|---|---|---|
| porta | port- | portā- | Ā-Declension (first) |
| servus | serv- | servo- | O-Declension (second) |
| mīles | mīlit- | mīlit- | Consonant Declension (third) |
The base is the part of the word that does not change. Add -ā to the base in the first declension, or -o in the second, and you get the stem. These two stem vowels matter so much to the case endings that the declensions are named after them.
porta — base port-, stem portā-; servus — base serv-, stem servo-.
The third declension is the Consonant or I-Declension, and its nouns are classified by how the stem ends. If the last letter of the stem is a consonant, the word has a consonant stem, and there the stem is the base — no vowel is added. If the stem ends in -i-, the word has an i-stem, formed by adding -i- to the base. That i changes certain cases, so the distinction is an important one.
This lesson covers consonant stems only. The i-stems come later.
Consonant stems fall into two classes: I. those that add -s to the base to form the nominative singular; II. those that add no termination at all in the nominative singular.
Every noun in this lesson belongs to Class I.
Masculine and feminine nouns of Class I take one set of terminations. Learn the right-hand column and you can decline any of them.
| prīnceps, m. chief | mīles, m. soldier | rēx, m. king | virtūs, f. courage | Terminations M. and F. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base / stem | prīncip- | mīlit- | rēg- | virtūt- | |
| Nom. sg. | prīnceps | mīles | rēx | virtūs | -s |
| Gen. | prīncipis | mīlitis | rēgis | virtūtis | -is |
| Dat. | prīncipī | mīlitī | rēgī | virtūtī | -ī |
| Acc. | prīncipem | mīlitem | rēgem | virtūtem | -em |
| Abl. | prīncipe | mīlite | rēge | virtūte | -e |
| Nom. pl. | prīncipēs | mīlitēs | rēgēs | virtūtēs | -ēs |
| Gen. | prīncipum | mīlitum | rēgum | virtūtum | -um |
| Dat. | prīncipibus | mīlitibus | rēgibus | virtūtibus | -ibus |
| Acc. | prīncipēs | mīlitēs | rēgēs | virtūtēs | -ēs |
| Abl. | prīncipibus | mīlitibus | rēgibus | virtūtibus | -ibus |
The base — which in a consonant stem is also the stem — is found by dropping -is from the genitive singular. This is why the genitive is always given in the vocabulary: it, and not the nominative, is what shows you the word's real shape.
iūdicis − -is = iūdic-; lapidis − -is = lapid-; peditis − -is = pedit-.
The genitive is regular; it is the nominative singular that hides things, and it hides them in exactly three ways.
Most nouns of two syllables have i in the base but e in the nominative.
prīnceps (base prīncip-), mīles (base mīlit-), iūdex (base iūdic-). The word lapis is the exception — it keeps its i in the nominative too.
Latin will not tolerate -ts or -ds at the end of a word, so the consonant simply falls away when the nominative -s is added.
mīles stands for mīlets; lapis for lapids; virtūs for virtūts.
Here nothing is lost — the two consonants merge into a single letter, and that letter is x. This is why a nominative in -x is a reliable sign of a base in -c- or -g-.
iūdic + s = iūdex; rēg + s = rēx; duc + s = dux.
Six out of six before you start the exercises.
Question 1
Why does the nominative rēx look nothing like its own genitive rēgis?
Right. That is Rule 7. Nothing is dropped: rēg + s merge into the single letter x, exactly as iūdic + s gives iūdex and duc + s gives dux. The -g is not replaced — it is still there, inside the x.
Not quite — the x is doing the work of two letters at once. Ask yourself which two.
Question 2
What is the base of virtūs, virtūtis?
Right. Rule 4: drop -is from the genitive singular virtūtis and virtūt- is what remains. Never take the base from the nominative — virtūs would have misled you into virtūs- or virtū-, and neither will decline.
Not quite — the nominative is the one form you must not use here. Go to the genitive and remove its ending.
Question 3
Mīles stands for an earlier mīlets. Which rule accounts for the missing letter?
Right. Rule 6 — the -t of mīlit- falls away before the nominative -s, and the same happens in lapis (for lapids) and virtūs (for virtūts). Option c is a real rule and also applies to mīles, but it explains the vowel e, not the vanished t.
Not quite — two things changed between mīlit- and mīles. The question asks only about the letter that disappeared.
Question 4
Most two-syllable nouns show i in the base but e in the nominative. Which of these is the exception named in the lesson?
Right. Rule 5: prīnceps (base prīncip-) and iūdex (base iūdic-) both swap their base i for e in the nominative, but lapis keeps the i of lapid- straight through.
Not quite — write each nominative beside its base and look only at the vowel. Two of them change it; one does not.
Question 5
In a consonant stem, how does the stem relate to the base?
Right. Rule 2. That is precisely what makes it a consonant stem: no vowel is appended, so the stem ends in the base's own final consonant — rēg-, virtūt-, lapid-. Adding -i- (option a) would make it an i-stem, and adding -ā- (option b) is the first declension.
Not quite — the declension is named after the letter its stems end in. If a vowel were added, what letter would the stem end in?
Question 6
Which is the genitive plural of eques, equitis?
Right. Base equit- plus the genitive plural termination -um gives equitum, "of the horsemen." Equitōrum borrows the second declension's -ōrum, which this declension never uses; and equitium is the i-stem shape — that extra i is exactly what a consonant stem does not have.
Not quite — find -um in the terminations column of the table above, and add it straight onto the base.
Answered correctly: 0 / 6