Grammatica Capitulum XV · Magister et discipulī

The school chapter: the master, the pupils, the chair and the rod. But the real novelty is not the setting — it is that the Latin verb finally stops being one-eyed. Until now the book spoke almost always in the third person; here the table closes, and with it come the words for we and you.

1. The present in all six persons

The endings are the same for all four conjugations:

And esse, the irregular one, in full:

sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt

1 bis. And posse, which is esse with pot- in front

Capitulum X gave you only potest and possunt. The table closes here:

A single rule explains it all: stick pot- in front of esse, and the t turns to s whenever esse begins with s.

• pot + sum → possum · pot + sumus → possumus · pot + sunt → possunt
• pot + es → potes · pot + est → potest · pot + estis → potestis

Like licet, posse calls for an infinitive behind it: recitāre nōn possum, I cannot recite. But the two do not say the same thing — posse says what one is able to do, licet what is allowed.

2. nōs, vōs — and why they go unwritten

Latin here receives its pronouns in full:

Capitulum III gave only mē and tē; capitulum XIV, mihi and tibi. The table is now complete.

But they are almost never written. Recitāmus can only mean “we recite”: the ending is enough, and the pronoun adds nothing. It is written only to contrast:

• Ego recitō, tū tacēs. — I recite, you keep quiet.
• Vōs discipulī estis. — you are the pupils (and I am not).

It is a stress, not a crutch.

3. The four words that hook one clause onto another

This is where the Latin sentence stops being a simple sentence.

• sī — if: sī tacētis, magister nōn īrātus est.
• nisi — unless, except. It is ne + sī, and it loses the macron: nisi tacētis, magister īrātus est.
• at — but on the other hand. It stands first in its clause and opposes two people or two sides: Titus recitat, at Līvia tacet. Distinguish it from sed (cap. I), which corrects what has just been said rather than opposing two parties.
• antequam — before. Made of ante and quam, both from capitulum VI: antequam magister venit, puerī clāmant.

4. licet, the verb with no subject

Nothing performs the action. Two words always accompany it:

• the person concerned, the one allowed: mihi, tibi, nōbīs, vōbīs;
• what is allowed, in the shape of an infinitive.

Nōbīs cantāre licet. — we are allowed to sing.

Do not look for the subject: there is none, and the verb asks for none.

5. Comparatives that tell order and place

Capitulum XII compared qualities (longior, brevior). Here three comparatives order or locate:

• prior, prius — the first of two, the former: liber prior, the former of the two books;
• posterior, posterius — the one at the back: sellae posteriōrēs, the chairs at the rear;
• īnferior, īnferius — the one below: sella īnferior, the lower seat.

prior is a true comparative with no positive: no plain form exists. posterior and īnferior go back to older positives, but the course serves only their comparative forms here. All three decline alike: prior, priōrem, priōre just like posterior, posteriōrem, posteriōre.

6. domī, at home

domī says “at home” with no preposition. It is the locative of capitulum VI, the one in Rōmae: Latin keeps it for a handful of words only, and domī is the commonest of them.

7. Two pairs of verbs not to be confused

• cōnsīdere is a movement: one cōnsīdit in order to end up seated. sedēre (cap. XI) is a state: one sedet because one already is.
• tacēre (cap. IV) is the act of falling silent; tacitus is the state that follows — exactly like aperīre and apertus in capitulum XIV. Puerī tacent, deinde tacitī sunt.

And two transparent compounds: exclāmāre is ex- + clāmāre (cap. VIII), the shout that bursts out; reddere is re- + dare (cap. VII), giving back what one took.

dēsinere calls for an infinitive behind it, like solēre in capitulum XIV: rīdēre dēsinunt, they stop laughing.

Spelling traps

• malum “evil, harm” has a short a. Three words look alike and must not be confused: mālum “apple” (long ā, cap. VII), malus -a -um “bad” (cap. VI), and this neuter malum.
• vērum is a noun — “the truth” — beside the adjective vērus, vēra, vērum. The book makes two entries of them, as it did of sōlum and sōlus.
• sī carries a long ī, but nisi has no macron at all.
• magister, magistrī: the stem is magistr-, and the -e- of the nominative returns nowhere — like puer, puerī (cap. II).
• redīre keeps īre's irregularity: redit without a macron, but redīmus, redītis, redīre with one. It copies exīre (cap. VII) exactly.
• lectulus is the diminutive of lectus (cap. X), as sacculus was of saccus.
• lūdus means both game and school. Latin named the school after free time.