Lesson 40 · Review
Learn every one of these with its genitive attached. Two of them are traps: captīvus and impedīmentum are second declension, and salūs belongs to the class you met last lesson.
Captīvus, -ī and impedīmentum, -ī are given with -ī, not -is — the signature of the second declension. Their genitive is captīvī, impedīmentī, and they decline like servus and bellum. Only a genitive in -is puts a noun in the third declension.
Last lesson's nouns added -s to the base to make the nominative singular. This lesson's add nothing at all — and the result is not the tidy simplification it sounds like.
Consonant stems that add no termination in the nominative singular are declined in every other case exactly like those that add -s. They may be masculine, feminine, or neuter.
So the two classes differ in one form out of ten. Everything you learned in Lesson 39 carries over untouched.
With the exception of the nominative, the terminations are identical to Class I, and the base is found the same way: drop -is from the genitive singular.
cōnsulis − -is = cōnsul-; legiōnis − -is = legiōn-; patris − -is = patr-.
Four nominatives of four different shapes — cōnsul, legiō, ōrdō, pater — and below the first line they behave as one word.
| cōnsul, m. consul | legiō, f. legion | ōrdō, m. row | pater, m. father | Terminations M. and F. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base / stem | cōnsul- | legiōn- | ōrdin- | patr- | |
| Nom. sg. | cōnsul | legiō | ōrdō | pater | — |
| Gen. | cōnsulis | legiōnis | ōrdinis | patris | -is |
| Dat. | cōnsulī | legiōnī | ōrdinī | patrī | -ī |
| Acc. | cōnsulem | legiōnem | ōrdinem | patrem | -em |
| Abl. | cōnsule | legiōne | ōrdine | patre | -e |
| Nom. pl. | cōnsulēs | legiōnēs | ōrdinēs | patrēs | -ēs |
| Gen. | cōnsulum | legiōnum | ōrdinum | patrum | -um |
| Dat. | cōnsulibus | legiōnibus | ōrdinibus | patribus | -ibus |
| Acc. | cōnsulēs | legiōnēs | ōrdinēs | patrēs | -ēs |
| Abl. | cōnsulibus | legiōnibus | ōrdinibus | patribus | -ibus |
If nothing is added, why does the nominative not simply show the base? Because in two kinds of stem the base cannot stand at the end of a word as it is.
The base loses its final -n-, and what is left ends in -ō. This is why two words that look alike in the nominative can have quite different bases.
legiō (base legiōn-), ōrdō (base ōrdin-), homō (base homin-).
A base ending in -tr- slips an e in before the r so the word can be pronounced. The e belongs to the nominative alone and vanishes in every other case.
pater (base patr-), māter (base mātr-), frāter (base frātr-) — but accusative patrem, mātrem, frātrem, never paterem.
In cōnsul, cōnsulis, imperātor, imperātōris, and soror, sorōris nothing happens at all: the base ends in a letter that can close a word, so the nominative is the base.
Note the contrast with Rule 4: soror and imperātor end in -r like pater, but their bases are sorōr- and imperātōr- — the vowel stays. Hence sorōrem and imperātōrem, not sorrem or imperātrem.
Three different nominative shapes, and not one of them can be predicted from the base — nor the base from it. The genitive singular is the only form that reveals the base every time. Always learn it with the nominative.
Six out of six before you start the exercises.
Question 1
What is the base of legiō, legiōnis?
Right. Rule 2 — drop -is from the genitive legiōnis and legiōn- remains. The nominative legiō had already thrown away that -n- (Rule 3), so taking the base from the nominative would have cost you a letter in every other case.
Not quite — the nominative is exactly the form you must not use. Go to the genitive and remove its ending.
Question 2
Why does ōrdō end in -ō when its base is ōrdin-?
Right. Rule 3. Nothing is added — Class II has no termination at all — but the final -n- of ōrdin- cannot close a Latin word, so it falls away and the i before it lengthens to ō. The same happens in legiō (legiōn-) and homō (homin-).
Not quite — remember that Class II adds nothing in the nominative. So whatever produced that -ō must be a loss, not an addition.
Question 3
Which is the accusative singular of pater, patris?
Right. The base is patr- and the accusative singular termination is -em, so patr- + -em = patrem. The e of pater exists only to make the nominative pronounceable (Rule 4) and never appears again. Patrum is the genitive plural.
Not quite — build the form from the base, not from the nominative. Which letters survive from patris when you drop -is?
Question 4
You meet the forms cōnsule and rēge in a sentence. What tells you which belongs to Class I and which to Class II?
Right. Rule 1. Outside the nominative singular the two classes are declined identically, so cōnsule and rēge are the same shape of form and cost a reader nothing. The classes are named only to explain how each nominative came about — and both may be masculine, feminine, or neuter.
Not quite — compare the two termination columns from Lesson 39 and this lesson, line by line. How many rows actually differ?
Question 5
Which word in this lesson's vocabulary is not a third-declension noun?
Right. Its genitive is impedīmentī, in -ī — the mark of the second declension — so it declines like bellum, and its plural impedīmenta means "baggage." Captīvus, -ī is the other decoy. Salūs, salūtis is third declension, but Class I: it adds -s to the base salūt-, which drops its -t (Lesson 39).
Not quite — ignore the nominative entirely and look only at the genitive each word is given with. One of the three does not end in -is.
Question 6
Pater and imperātor both end in -r. Why is the accusative patrem but imperātōrem?
Right. The genitives patris and imperātōris give the bases patr- and imperātōr-. In patr- the e of the nominative is inserted (Rule 4) and disappears elsewhere; in imperātōr- the ō is part of the base and stays throughout. Soror, sorōris patterns with imperātor; māter and frāter pattern with pater.
Not quite — write both genitives out, drop -is from each, and compare what stands immediately before the r.
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