The chapter of the married couple, and above all the course's first past tense. Until now a Latin sentence could speak only of the present; it can henceforth tell what was going on.
What the book teaches and the course cannot yet serve: the comparative plūrēs (“more numerous”), which our form generator does not have — plūrimī is there; the vocative mī of meus, which is a cell of a word belonging to another chapter; and the genitive of ūnus and trēs, both numerals having been recorded as indeclinable since capitulum I. Only duōrum is used. These forms appear nowhere in the chapter, and they will return when the tool can produce them.
1. The imperfect active
Between stem and ending settles -bā-. The endings are the active's, with -m in place of -ō in the first person:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | amābam I loved | amābāmus we loved |
| 2nd | amābās you loved | amābātis you loved |
| 3rd | amābat he loved | amābant they loved |
Only two vowels before the -bā-:
- the 1st and 2nd conjugations keep their own: amābam, monēbam
- the 3rd and 4th take an -ē- they do not have in the present: mittēbam, capiēbam, audiēbam
That is the whole table. There is no other irregularity.
2. The imperfect passive
The same -bā-, followed by the six passive endings learned in capitulum XVII:
amā*bar, amābāris, amābātur, amābāmur, amābāminī, amābantur*
Nothing is new but the tense.
3. The irregulars
In esse the -b- disappears and the -ā- stays:
er*am, erās, erat, erāmus, erātis, erant*
posse is built on it, with pot- in front: poteram*, poterat*. And īre shrinks its stem to ī-: ībam*, ībās*, ībat*.
4. What this tense is for
For what was going on or kept happening, not for what happened once:
Cotīdiē ad forum ībat. — he went to the forum every day.
Latin has another tense for the act done once, and the book gives it later.
5. domus, the noun with two declensions
It follows the fourth for the most part — domus, domūs, domuī, domibus, like manus (capitulum XI) — but three cells come to it from the second, and they are the ones most used:
- domī — at home, where one is
- domum — home, where one goes
- domō — from home, where one comes from
The accusative plural takes the same road: domōs, not domūs.
These three forms refuse a preposition, exactly like Rōmae, Rōmam, Rōmā (capitulum VI): the word for one's house behaves like a town's name. One says neither in domō nor ad domum.
6. The third-declension adjective with one ending
dīves, pauper, praesēns have a single nominative, the same in all three genders — and their stem cannot be read there:
- dīves, gen. dīvitis → stem dīvit-
- pauper, gen. pauperis → stem pauper-
It is the genitive that must be known, as with a third-declension noun.
Two exceptions worth remembering: unlike brevis or fortis, these two make their ablative singular in -e (dīvite, paupere) and their genitive plural in -um (dīvitum, pauperum).
7. The five irregular comparisons
| comparative | superlative | |
|---|---|---|
| bonus | melior | optimus |
| malus | peior | pessimus |
| magnus | maior | maximus |
| parvus | minor | minimus |
| multī | — | plūrimī |
None of these degrees is built on its own positive: they are simply known by heart.
8. The highest degree followed by the genitive
When the highest degree singles out one being within a group, the group goes in the genitive plural:
pulcherrima deārum — the most beautiful of the goddesses
Used alone, the same degree simply says “very”: flōs pulcherrimus, a very beautiful flower.
9. Nine adjectives with a genitive in -īus
ūllus makes ūllīus in the genitive and ūllī in the dative, in all three genders. Eight others do likewise: nūllus, sōlus, tōtus, alter, uter, neuter, alius, ūnus. The rest of their table is ordinary.
ūllus is almost always used after a negative: nōn ūlla columna, not a single column.
10. Two constructions apart
- dignus + ablative, with no preposition: digna dōnō, worthy of a gift. It is the same ablative as plēnus's (capitulum VII); English puts an “of” that Latin does not.
- opus est — “there is need”, the course's third subjectless turn of phrase after necesse est (XIV) and oportet (XVII). It calls for an infinitive: nōn opus est plūs dīcere.
11. A few words to watch
- tamen slips inside the second clause, often after its first word — where quamquam (XVII) opens the first.
- ergā + accusative says the feeling turned toward someone: amor ergā uxōrem. ad says movement toward a place.
- minus and plūs weigh the action and never change shape; minor and maior qualify a person or a thing, and agree with it.