Grammatica Capitulum XXVII · Rēs rūsticae

The chapter of the third mood. You could already say what is (the indicative, capitulum I) and command someone standing in front of you (the imperative, capitulum IV). Here you learn to say what you want done when you are not addressing the person who must do it. Latin then changes mood — the coniūnctīvus — where English changes turn of phrase.

This is the longest chapter of the course after XVI: seventy-seven words. But it has only one point of morphology, and that point rests on a single vowel. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the fields; the lesson lies elsewhere.

1. The vowel works backwards

• The 1st conjugation, the one with ā, gives up its ā and takes -e-.
• The other three, which had no ā, take it.

• This is the chapter's only real obstacle. Twenty-six chapters have taught you to associate -ā- with the 1st conjugation; here that association must be undone.
• Look at cēnseat: the -e- of the stem, then the -a- of the mood. The mood erases nothing, it is added.

2. The endings, however, do not change

• Active: -m, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt.
• Passive: -r, -ris, -tur, -mur, -minī, -ntur — those of capitulum VI, untouched.

• Nothing is new in the passive but the vowel. Whoever knows the active already knows the passive: arātur → arētur, colitur → colātur, rapiuntur → rapiantur.

3. One irregular only: sum

• sim, sīs, sit, sīmus, sītis, sint.
• It is recognised by having no visible stem: between the s- and the ending there is only an -i-.
• It is the one irregular the book dates to this chapter. possim, velim and feram exist in Latin, but will come later.

4. The mood never stands alone

It follows a verb of willing, through ut:

• imperāre ut — to order that · iubēre — to command
• monēre ut — to warn to · ōrāre ut — to beg that
• efficere ut — to bring it about that · labōrāre ut — to work so that

Dominus imperat ut agrī bene colantur. The master orders that the fields be well tilled.

Ōrō tē ut grex meus in agrō tuō pāscātur. I beg you to let my flock graze in your field.

• The mood does not express the balance of power. imperat ut sit and ōrat ut sit take exactly the same form: one commands, the other pleads, and Latin distinguishes them only by the first verb. What the mood says is just this: the thing is not yet done.

5. One denies not with nōn but with nē

• cūrā ut veniant → cūrā nē errent.
• Two prohibitions are chained by nēve, which is not one more word: it is nē welded to the -ve of this chapter, as -que has welded “and” since capitulum II.

Pāstor vigilat nē ovēs rapiantur nēve errent.

• Careful: nē (long ē, the conjunction of this chapter) is not -ne (short e, the interrogative enclitic of capitulum I). Nōnne audīs? on one hand, nē audiās on the other.
• A second use of nē, which the book also gives: nē… quidem, “not even”.

6. The chapter's function words

• ūtī wants the ablative: falce ūtitur, manū ūtitur, arātrō ūtitur. English takes an object, Latin takes the case of the instrument. After carēre (capitulum XX), it is the course's second verb with this construction.
• prōdesse and nocēre want the dative: one does not harm someone but harms to someone. And prōdesse hides a -d- that shows only before a vowel: prōd*est, prōdestis, prōdesse* — but prō*sum, prōsumus, prōsunt*.
• Four prepositions. prae, prō, abs + ablative; circā + accusative.
  • prae has a comparative sense that needs no comparative: prae cēterīs piger = cēterīs pigrior.
  • abs is not a new word: it is the shape ab takes before the t- of tē, and practically nowhere else.

7. Forms and words worth pausing on

• Two plurals without a singular, both 3rd-declension feminines: frūgēs, frūgum (the fruits of the earth) and precēs, precum (entreaties). After castra and arma (capitulum XII).
• Two present participles turned dictionary adjectives: patiēns, patientis (from patī) and neglegēns, neglegentis (from neglegere). They decline like pār and impār (capitulum XXIV): the stem is read off the genitive, never off the nominative.
• nēquam never changes. It is an indeclinable adjective: homō nēquam, pāstōrēs nēquam, fēmina nēquam. One form, for every gender and every number.
• rūs, rūris and its locative rūrī, “in the country”, with no preposition — against in urbe. The locative of capitulum VI appears on only a handful of words: Rōmae, domī, and this one.
• agricola is masculine despite its ending, like nauta (capitulum XVI): agricola validus, never valida.
• Three neuters that do not look like it: pecus, pecoris (livestock), frīgus, frīgoris (cold), sēmen, sēminis (seed). Their nominative does not say so; their genitive does.
• metitur is not a deponent: it is the ordinary passive of metere, “the grain is reaped”. But pāscuntur is a passive best rendered by an active: “the sheep graze”.
• tantum is a noun here, not the adverb “only” of capitulum IV: tantum pecūniae, so much money — a neuter followed by the genitive, like multum and paulum (capitulum XVI).
• quīdam, quaedam, quoddam: “a certain one, one of them”. Its four surprising forms are quendam, quandam, quōrundam, quārundam — the stem's -m becomes -n- before the d-.

8. What this chapter does not yet do

• The other tenses of the subjunctive. The book spreads them over four chapters: the imperfect in XXVIII, the perfect in XXXII, the pluperfect in XXXIII. Here, the present alone.
• The subjunctive of posse, velle and ferre. Those forms exist, but the book does not date them here.
• The Latin name of the mood, on the other hand, does belong to this chapter: coniūnctīvus, “the joining one” — the mood of the clause one attaches to another. It takes its place after indicātīvus and imperātīvus (capitulum IV), completing the trio by which the language describes itself.