A single morning: waking, washing, dressing, gathering one's things. Its language brings together a voice turned back on its subject, the present participle, the words of the pair, the declension of duo, and a verb that slips inside speech.
1. The active present participle
The participle takes part in two worlds: it keeps the verb's action and voice, but receives case, number, and gender like an adjective. In the present it is active:
- vigilāre → vigilāns, vigilantis — keeping watch
- currere → currēns, currentis — running
- audīre → audiēns, audientis — hearing
The singular nominative ends in -ns; the other forms use the stem in -nt- — accusative currentem, genitive currentis. In the lectūra, canis ex hortō currēns calceum gerit means “the dog, running out of the garden, carries a shoe.” currēns agrees with canis while expressing an action in progress.
2. The passive that means “oneself”
Latin has no reflexive verb. Where English says he washes himself, it turns the verb's voice around — the voice of cap. VI:
- Puer lavā*tur.* — the boy washes himself
- Puella vestī*tur.* — the girl gets dressed
The subject is both doer and receiver. Nothing is new in the form: these are the familiar endings -tur, -ntur. What is new is the use.
Latin says it just as well with the little word sē of cap. VII: puer sē lavat.
3. The four words of the pair — and duo
When there are only two things or two people, Latin has three words of its own:
| over two | beyond two | |
|---|---|---|
| to ask | uter? which of the two? | quis? who? |
| to name one | alter one of the two | alius another |
| to name neither | neuter neither | nūllus none |
| to take each one | uterque each of the two | omnēs all |
neuter is made of ne + uter: it is the source of the name of the neuter gender, “neither masculine nor feminine”.
These four have a flexion of their own in the singular, that of sōlus, nūllus and tōtus:
- genitive -īus: utrīus, alterīus, neutrīus
- dative -ī: utrī, alterī, neutrī
Everything else is regular. Mind the stem: uter and neuter drop their -e- (utr-, neutr-), but alter keeps it (alter-, alterum, alterī).
uterque, utraque, utrumque keeps -que attached to every form. It means “each of the two” and remains singular with its noun and verb: uterque parēns spectat. Its genitive is utrīusque, its dative utrīque.
duo has no singular. Its plural declension distinguishes gender:
| case | masculine | feminine | neuter |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative / vocative | duo | duae | duo |
| accusative | duōs | duās | duo |
| genitive | duōrum | duārum | duōrum |
| dative / ablative | duōbus | duābus | duōbus |
Thus servus duōs calceōs affert, but cum duābus tunicīs.
Neuter parēns calceum reperit — the verb stays singular: neuter counts as one.
4. Right and left
dexter, dextra, dextrum and sinister, sinistra, sinistrum follow the pattern of pulcher: the masculine's -e- drops everywhere else.
- pēs dexter, but manus dextra, bracchium dextrum
- accusative dextrum, genitive dextrī
5. mihi, tibi — and cum stuck behind
The personal pronouns gain two new forms here.
The dative names the person to whom a thing belongs, or for whom it is done:
- Tunicam mihi dat. — he gives me a tunic
- Mihi duo calceī sunt. — I have two shoes (word for word: “to me are two shoes”)
Latin does not readily say I have: it says to me is.
cum sticks behind its pronoun — the one place in Latin where a preposition moves behind the word it governs:
- mēcum, tēcum — never cum mē, never cum tē
6. inquit slips inside the speech
dīcit announces the words and stands in front; inquit slips inside them, after the first word, with its subject following:
- Pater dīcit: “Surge!”
- “Surge”, inquit pater, “nam gallus canit.”
The verb is defective: of its whole paradigm the chapter gives only inquit and inquiunt.
7. rēs, and the fifth declension returning
rēs, rem, reī, reī, rē — plural rēs, rēs, rērum, rēbus, rēbus.
One difference only from diēs: the stem of rēs ends in a consonant, hence a genitive -eī with a short e, against di-ēī with a long ē after a vowel. Writing rēī is a mistake.
Like diēs, rēs has the same shape in the nominative and accusative plural: the word's position decides.
8. The chapter's small words
- omnis, omne — all, taken one by one; against tōtus (cap. XIII), the whole taken as a block: omnēs līberī, but tōta domus. Genitive plural omnium.
- nihil — nothing, indeclinable, for things; nēmō (cap. X) for people.
- apertus / clausus — the state in which aperīre and claudere (cap. VII) have left the thing.
- praeter + accusative — except, besides.
- an — introduces only the second term of a double question: dexter an sinister?. Outside a question, Latin says aut (cap. VIII) or vel (cap. XIII).
- prīmum… deinde… — first… then…; adhūc — still, so far; hodiē — today.
- solēre + infinitive — to be in the habit of: surgere solet, he usually gets up.
9. Two pairs of verbs not to be confused
induere takes the garment as its object: tunicam induit.
vestīre takes the person: fīlium vestit — and, turned round, vestītur, he gets dressed.
gerere — to wear, to carry on oneself: togam gerit, whence the adjective togātus, “toga-clad”.
poscere — to demand, stronger than petere (cap. IX): one does not ask, one calls for.
afferre is a compound of ferre (cap. XII) and keeps its irregularities: affert, afferunt, imperative affer.
Spelling traps
- toga (short o) but togātus (long ā).
- stilus is written with an i — never stylus.
- frīgēre, the verb (to feel cold), against frīgidus (cap. XIII), the adjective (to be cold): aqua frīgida est, but puer frīget.
- parēns carries its long ē in the nominative only: parentis, parentem, parentēs.
- valē and valēre: long ē. valē is said on leaving, salvē (cap. IV) on arriving.