Latin Grammar You Really Need to Know: Teach Yourself

Gregory Klyve

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781444189605
• eBook ISBN: 9781444189629
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Ancient Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Comprehensive and clear explanations of key grammar patterns and structures are reinforced and contextualized through authentic materials. You will not only learn how to construct grammar correctly, but when and where to use it so you sound natural and appropriate. Latin Grammar You Really Need to Know will help you gain the intuition you need to become a confident communicator in your new language.

1

Alphabet, pronunciation and terminology

In this chapter you should aim to

• learn the pronunciation of the Latin alphabet

• gain a basic understanding of the grammatical terms used in this book

Alphabet and pronunciation

There are 24 letters in the Latin alphabet. The Romans had no j or w. In writing, capitals are used for proper nouns and numerals, not to start sentences.

A Pronunciation

There are no silent letters in Latin and long vowels take about twice as long to say as short ones.

A	a as in father when long, but as in act when short
B	b as in but
C	c as in cut, not as in church, cider or loch
D	d as in dog
E	e as in prey when long, but as in jet when short.
F	f as in father
G	g as in goat, not as in genius
H	h as in have
I	i as in machine when long, as in pit when short and as y in yet when used as a consonant
K	k as in king (this Greek letter [kappa] was used only in words of Greek origin)
L	l as in long
M	m as in mother
N	n as in newt, but, before c, g and qu it is pronounced ng, as in sing
O	o as in tone (although the French o in chose is closer) when long, as in hot when short
P	p as in pat
Q	q as in queen and always followed by u, as in English
R	r is always rolled, as in Italian
S	s as in sun, not as in was, treasure or sugar
T	t as in top, not as in motion
U	u as in food when long but as in put when short
V	w as in wine, although the Hindi pronunciation of v is closer
X	x as in axe, not as in exact
Y	y as in the French vu (this Greek letter [upsilon] was used only in words of Greek origin)
Z	z as in zoo (this Greek letter [zeta] was used only in words of Greek origin)

B Diphthongs are combinations of vowels making one sound. In Latin they are all long:

ae pronounced ai as in aisle, e.g. praeda → booty

au pronounced ou as in house, e.g. aurum → gold

oe pronounced oi as in boil, e.g. poena → penalty

ei pronounced ei as in reign. Only found in the exclamations ei! eia! heia! → oh! aha!

eu pronounced ew as in pew, e.g. seu → whether

ui pronounced wea as in weak, e.g. huic → to this

The diphthongs ei, eu and ui are rare. Mostly when these vowel combinations are found they are pronounced separately, as in tui → yours (pronounced two-ee), fluit → it flows (flew-it), mei → mine (meyee) and deus → god (de-yus). When the u follows the letter q it is pronounced w, as in English.

C Consonantal i and u

• In some Latin words the letter i is pronounced as the consonant y at the beginning or even in the middle of words, e.g. coniungo (I join together: pronounced con-yungo) and iam (already: pronounced yam). In the English derivatives of many of these words the consonantal i becomes the letter j, e.g. juvenile comes from iuvenis (young man), judicial comes from iudicium (judgement), joke comes from iocus (joke) and the name Julius from Iulius.

• The Romans made no distinction between v and u when writing so, for example, in an inscription you might find EQVVS for equus → horse. Some published texts still make no distinction so you may find uinum for vinum → wine.

D When t, c or p are followed by an h, they are called aspirated consonants th, ch and ph. They come from the Greek letters theta, chi and phi and exist in Latin words which come from Greek. They should be pronounced as an emphasized version of the letters without the h but in practice th and ph are often pronounced as in the English thin and photo and ch as in the Scottish loch.

E Length of vowels and syllables

• In English the stressed vowel of a word is usually lengthened while unstressed ones are not, e.g. cider, boredom. In a Latin word, however, any of the vowels may be either long or short. In dictionaries and textbooks the long vowels are usually marked out by a line over the top of the vowel called a macron (¯). In some cases, it is important to know whether a vowel is long or short, especially in verse, but when you come to read Latin documents you will not find any distinguishing marks over long vowels. In this book there are no marks used over vowels for the exercises and readers do not need to include them. In the explanatory matter, long syllables are marked when they are of importance.

• The length of a syllable, as opposed to a vowel, is important to know for verse. A syllable is long if it has a long vowel or a diphthong, or ends in two consonants, the letter x or a single consonant if the next word also begins with a consona...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Contents 
• Meet the author
• Introduction
• 1 Alphabet, pronunciation and terminology
• 2 Tenses (indicative active)
• 3 Nouns
• 4 Cases
• 5 Adjectives and Adverbs
• 6 Prepositions, Conjunctions and Numerals
• 7 Pronouns and Questions
• 8 Passive and Deponent Verbs
• 9 Subjunctive Verbs
• 10 Verbal Nouns and Adjectives (participles, gerunds, supines and gerundives)
• 11 Infinitives and Imperatives
• 12 Impersonal, Defective and Irregular Verbs
• 13 Relative and Temporal Clauses, Ablative Absolute
• 14 Final, Consecutive and Conditional Clauses
• 15 Indirect Speech
• 16 Other Subordinate Clauses (clauses of concession, cause, proviso, comparison, fear, doubt and prevention, and the use of quin)
• 17 Miscellaneous (dates, money and measures, names, places, inscriptions, timeline, Latin today) Key to the exercises
• Key to the Exercises
• Copyright