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Noun Tables

The Genitive

The genitive case is a descriptive case. The genitive case describes the following features of the described noun:

• Possession e.g. The Dog of Marcus (Canis Marcī)
• Origin e.g. Marcus of Rome (Marcus Romae)
• Relation e.g. A thing of beauty (Rēs pulchrae)
• Quantity e.g. A gallon of water
• Quality e.g. Day of wrath (Diēs irae)

Latin Examples

Exercise 6

Indicate the genitive:

1. Flavia's dog is good.
2. The man has athlete's foot.
3. Māter Flāviae est domina.

Adjectives which describe genitive nouns must have suffixes which are in the genitive case, matching the number, and gender.

The Dative

The dative case, also known as the indirect object case indicates:

• For whom, e.g., I made this car for him
• To whom, e.g., I gave this car to him
• Of whom (Possessive Dative)
• Predicative Dative (which shall be dealt with later).

Example 1

Demonstration: The Dative in Use

'he' is in the nominative, 'made' is the verb, 'the desk' is the accusative, 'for' is the preposition indicating a dative^, 'his friend' is the dative.

^ For can be used in some other constructs. To determine whether it is dative, analyse the meaning of the sentence (see Example 3). Practice will enable you to quickly spot the case of a noun in the sentence without much effort.

Example 2

Demonstration: The Dative in Use

He gave the book to John or; He gave to John the book; He gave John the book

This demonstrates how English can use prepositions to change word order and even 'presume' a certain preposition exists that has been left out, giving a dative construct.

Latin Examples

I gave my friend a gift. Ego dono amico meo donum.

• Note how the word "meus" become "meo" in order to agree with "amico".

He brought me a pen.

Feret mihi stylum.

• Note that the pronouns have a dative case as well, which can be reviewed in the chapter on pronouns.

Exercise 8: Translate into English

1. Do librum amico.(Dare-to give;Librum-book;amicus-friend)

1. Scribo litteras Imperatori.(Scribere-to write; Litteras-Letter/Letters(This is a word which can mean both the letter of an alphabet in the singular, or in the plural either an individual letter, as in message, or many letters.) Imperator, imperatoris-m.-General/Emperor.)

Roman Numerals

The Romans did not use the Hindu-Arabic numerals we use today. They used their own symbols and own numeric system. We still use Roman Numerals today.