LAT 108
Latin Reading and Grammar
Lesson 1. Chapters 1-5
Reading Assignment
- The Latin readings (Sententiae Antiquae) in each chapter of your textbook
are taken from Latin authors of various periods. I hope it may increase your
interest in these readings if you know the approximate historical period of
these various authors. Please read "A Brief Survey of Latin Literature," pp. xxxii-xxxix.
Then, look at number 1 in the writing assignment.
- The information in Chapters 1 through 5 is very elementary, and I do not
think it will take you long to review these chapters. Note the present tense
endings:
-o -mus
-s -tis
-t -nt
Note also the present infinitive endings, -are (first conjugation) and -ere (second conjugation). Examples of a first and second conjugation verb and of imperative forms are given for you on pp. 4 and 5.
- Learning vocabulary is probably the most important thing you do when studying
a foreign language. There are various ways to do this; I recommend the following.
Buy some packs of 3- by 5-inch cards (cut them in half if you wish). On one side
only write the Latin word. On the back, include
any other information you need, for example, the genitive, gender, and the
meaning of a noun, the principal parts and meaning of a verb. Flash these
to yourself a few minutes each day. Set aside those you have difficulty remembering
so that you can drill these more frequently. Start your vocabulary work now
with Chapter 1.
- a. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 cover the first and second declensions and the meanings
of the cases. Read pp. 9-14, 17-21, and 24-28.
b. Each chapter contains a brief paragraph or so on etymology. Please read these. They will help you with both English and Latin vocabulary (not to mention other languages).
c. I hope you find the chatty tone in the Latina est gaudium sections helpful too.
- Review the vocabulary in the chapters.
- Review the future and imperfect tense endings, adjectives, and vocabulary
in Chapter 5 (pp. 31-34). The imperfect tense is the easiest tense to recognize.
Any verb form that contains -ba- is in the imperfect (but review the imperfect
of sum, p. 37). The meaning is often "was/were,"
but read pp. 31-33 for different ways to translate it. When you are translating,
choose the most appropriate form.
- The optional self-tutorial exercises at the back of the book are obviously useful. I am not assigning these, but it would be to your benefit to do them.
Writing Assignment 1
Answer all the following questions on separate paper. Except for question 3b, do not write in this study guide. Please identify each answer with the number and letter of the question. Please include an Independent Study cover sheet with this writing assignment.
1. Briefly answer the following questions, or supply the missing words.
- Who was Augustus? What
was the Augustan age?
- What kind of poetry
did Horace and Vergil write?
- Who was Cicero? What
did he write?
- Plautus and Terence
wrote ________. They based their work on ________.
- Seneca wrote ________
and ________. He lived during the reign of the emperor ________.
- Catullus wrote ________.
Did he live slightly earlier or later than Vergil or Horace?
- Ovid's best-known work is the ________.
2. Write out an English translation of sentences 3, 6, 12, 13, and 15 on pages 6-7. (Always practice your Latin pronunciation by reading the Latin aloud.)
3a. Fill in the blanks. Please number each answer.
The subject of a sentence
is in the (1) ________ case. The accusative case is used
as the object of some prepositions and also the (2) ________
of a sentence. The ablative case expresses "by," (3) ________ ,
and "from" and is also found after some (4) ________ . The
(5) ________ case expresses "of" or "'s/s'"(possessives).
The dative case expresses (6) ________ or (7) ________ .
The majority of nouns in the first declension are (8) ________ in gender; the
second declension contains nouns of (9) ________ and (10) ________ gender. It
is essential to know the gender of neuter nouns, in
particular, because the nominative and (11) ________ singular are the same,
and in the second declension end in (12) ________ .
All neuter nouns (no matter what declension) end in
(13) ________ in the nominative and accusative plural.
3b. A copy of the following chart is found below. Fill in all the case endings on the chart and submit with your other answers.
| I | II | |||
| Sing. | Plur. | Sing. | Plur. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. | us/er/um | |||
| Gen. | 
|
|||
| Dat. | ||||
| Acc. | 
|
|||
| Abl. | 
|
|||
| Voc. | ||||
4. Write out the translations of these sentences in Sententiae Antiquae.
p. 15: 5, 6, 8, 13, 15, and "Catullus Bids His Girlfriend Farewell"
pp. 21 and 22: 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, and "The Grass is Always Greener"
p. 29: 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, and "The Rarity of Friendship"
5. On p. 35, translate the Sententiae Antiquae 1, 2, 7, 10, 11, 13, and the two Latin passages on the same page.