Accidence and Morphology
Basics of Accidence and Morphology
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Accidence refers to the inflectional parts of a Latin word, which show the word's function in a sentence. In this context, inflection means modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as voice, mood, tense, etc.
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Morphology is the study of the forms of words and the way they are joined to create phrases, clauses, and sentences.
Nouns and Adjectives
- Nouns and adjectives in Latin change their form depending on their function in the sentence. This is called declension.
- Latin has five main declensions. Each declension has its unique set of endings.
- Endings in Latin communicate whether a word is the subject, the object, or shows possession. They also provide information about the noun's gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter) and number (singular or plural).
- Adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number, and case.
Verbs
- Latin verbs have four principal parts: the present tense, the present perfect, and two forms of the past.
- Verbs are divided into four conjugations, each with its specific endings.
- A verb will change its form to show tense, voice, mood, person, and number.
- Learn to spot the stem of a verb (the raw part before the endings are attached) as it's central to understand its overall meaning.
Pronouns and Prepositions
- Pronouns in Latin operate similarly to English, they substitute for nouns.
- Some pronouns have specific forms for subject, object, and possessive, and they also adjust for gender and number.
- Prepositions in Latin always govern a certain case, and this can be either accusative, genitive, dative, or ablative.
Irregularities
- Not all words strictly follow their designated declensions or conjugations, some verbs and nouns are irregular.
- To master these, memorisation and practice are required.
- Pay close attention to the common irregular verbs like sum (to be), fero (to bring), eo (to go), volo (to want), nolo (to not want), and malo (to prefer), among others.
Remember, in Latin, the forms of the words often tell you much more than the words themselves. Pay attention to endings and modifications. It’s about breaking the word down, understanding the parts, and reconstructing its meaning in the sentence.