Until now a Latin sentence could speak only of what is happening. This chapter gives it a second tense, and with it the right to speak of what is not yet.
Completed learning: the chapter now opens the full present of velle — volō, vīs, vult, volumus, vultis, volunt. The four forms missing from capitulum X are practised in unit 2.
1. The future: two formations for one tense
What decides is neither meaning nor person, but the verb's family.
First and second conjugations — a -b- :
| portābō | I shall carry |
| portābis | you will carry |
| portābit | he will carry |
| portābimus | we shall carry |
| portābitis | you will carry |
| portābunt | they will carry |
Likewise carēbō, carēbis, carēbit for the second.
Third and fourth conjugations — no -b- at all, but an -a- and then an -ē- :
| alam | I shall feed |
| alēs | you will feed |
| alet | he will feed |
| alēmus, alētis, alent | … |
Likewise audiam, audiēs, audiet for the fourth.
2. The chapter's trap: a single vowel
| present | future |
|---|---|
| alit — he feeds | alet — he will feed |
| audit — he hears | audiet — he will hear |
| dīcit — he says | dīcet — he will say |
Latin gives no warning. The ending must be read, and nothing else.
3. The three irregulars
- esse: erō, eris, erit, erimus, eritis, erunt — no -b-, no -ē-.
- posse: poterō, poteris, poterit… — it is erō with pot- in front.
- īre: ībō, ībis, ībit, ībimus, ībitis, ībunt — it belongs to none of the four families, and yet it borrows the -b- of the first two. Its compounds follow: redībō, exībō.
4. The future passive
Nothing new: the future's mark takes its place as in the active, and the endings are those of capitulum VI.
portābitur, portābuntur — alētur, alentur
The second person singular takes -beris or -ēris: portāberis, alēris.
5. The negative command: nōlī, nōlīte
Latin does not forbid by negating a command. One never says *nōn tacē. One orders a refusal, and then names the action in the infinitive:
Nōlī tacēre. — do not be silent (literally: refuse to be silent) Nōlīte abīre. — do not go away
Two words, always, and only one thing moves: the first, according to whether one person is addressed (nōlī) or several (nōlīte), exactly as with venī and venīte (cap. IV and V). The second is never conjugated.
6. nōlle, and the weld that did not take everywhere
nōlle is nōn welded to volō, and it keeps its whole inflection — but three forms have stayed in two words:
| to want | to be unwilling | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st sg | volō | nōlō |
| 2nd sg | vīs | nōn vīs |
| 3rd sg | vult | nōn vult |
| 1st pl | volumus | nōlumus |
| 2nd pl | vultis | nōn vultis |
| 3rd pl | volunt | nōlunt |
Infinitive nōlle. The table itself shows where the weld took and where it did not: wherever the verb begins with vo-, it took; wherever it begins with v + ī or u, it failed, and the two words stayed side by side.
7. carēre: the ablative of lack
What one is deprived of goes in the ablative, with no preposition:
cibō caret — he is without food sermōne caret — he has no speech
It is the ablative of capitulum V, that of sine cibō — but the little word drops. Beware: English “to lack” takes a direct object, and cibum caret would be a mistake.
8. crās, mox — the time to come
- crās — tomorrow. The word demands the future: one cannot say crās venit. It answers hodiē (cap. XIV).
- mox — soon, with no date.
9. minimē, Latin's “no”
Latin has no word for a bare “no”: nōn (cap. I) denies a word or a verb and cannot stand alone as an answer.
— Estne īnfāns aeger? — Minimē.
10. sīve, against aut and vel
Three words offer a choice, and they do not say the same thing:
- aut (cap. VIII) excludes — one or the other, not both;
- vel (cap. XIII) is indifferent — take whichever you like;
- sīve confesses that one does not know which of the two is true, hence the doubling sīve… sīve. It is made of sī (cap. XV).
Spelling traps
- gradus belongs to the fourth declension, that of manus (cap. XI): gradus in the singular (short u), gradūs in the plural (long ū). Quantity alone separates them. But the ablative plural joins the third: gradibus, like manibus.
- mulier, mulieris keeps its -e-: mulierem, mulierēs. That is the exact opposite of magister, magistrī (cap. XV), and nothing in the nominative warns — only the genitive decides.
- lac, lactis makes its ablative lacte, with an -e: it is a consonant-stem neuter, not an i-stem like mare, marī (cap. X).
- cūnae exists only in the plural, like castra and arma (cap. XII). The adjective with it follows suit: cūnae vacuae sunt.
- nūtrīx, nūtrīcis: the -x of the nominative hides a -c-, as in lūx, lūcis (cap. XIII).
- alō, alere carries no macron at all — not to be confused with aliēnus, whose ē is long.
- īnfāns is made of in-, which denies, and an old verb “to say”: literally the one who does not speak. English “infant” comes straight from it.
- aliēnus is the exact opposite of suus (cap. IV): the same child is suus to his mother and aliēnus to the nurse.