Am I to assume, while wading through the myriad of noun forms, that if the verb is first or second person, that it can not be referring to any of the nouns?

And is it possible, that in the third person it might not be as well, and there is a he/she/it to add to the sentence?

In the sentence, "The ancient gate is large", "large" is an adjective, describing the "ancient gate", right? So should "large" then agree with the nominative form of "gate"?

When using the possessive "of", we use the genitive. Now if I want to translate "the girl's clothes" (in other words, the clothes of the girl), I would use the genitive for "girl". This is where my question comes. Do I use the accusative for clothes? Is this always the case (no pun intended)?

In the vocab list under philosophia, it says for definition - Greek PHILOSOPHIA, love of wisdom. Does this mean it is a greek word?

If you use the idiom "poenAs dare", do you conjugate "dare" to agree with the person and number? And do you also change poenAs to singular or plural depending on the sentence?

In the idiom "poEnAs dAre, I'm assuming that I should conjugate dAre to agree with the verb - as in "they are paying the penalty" would be "poEnAs dAnt sunt"

I just don't know where to start in this one. "If your land is strong, nothing terrifies the sailors and you ought to praise your great fortune."

Okay; I've got "Si patria vales, nauta nihil terrent et fortUnam magnam tuam laudAre debes." Is that right?"

In SA #3 is the word DA. Is this some form of the verb dare?

I am having trouble with the meaning of sentence 6. The best I could come up with is: The old Fatherland often praises but rejects luck as a way of life?????

In SA #7, "ME vItAre turbam iubEs, how do I determine which is the direct object of iubEs, ME or turbam?"

In SA #7, what is the form of the verb "vitAre"?

I found SA #8 to be very confusing. What's the case of "philosophiae"?

In SA 18, one of the words is 'strong'. What is the best vocab word to use here?

Anybody gotten a look at the TR for Chap 2 yet? (I think)I can figure each of the words, but putting them together is getting me a very weird sounding sentence. Best I have is "My girl I don't love you."

Am I to assume, while wading through the myriad of noun forms, that if the verb is first or second person, that it can not be referring to any of the nouns?

Meredith's answer:

That's probably a safe assumption. Later on, there could be a noun or an adjective in apposition to the subject, but I doubt Wheelock's will do that to you just yet.

Ernie's answer:

If the verb is a first or second _person_ form (_tense_ is something different), "I," "we," or "you" (sing. or pl.) will usually be the subject, without a noun or nouns.

And is it possible, that in the third person it might not be as well, and there is a he/she/it to add to the sentence?

Meredith's answer:

It is indeed quite possible that there might be a he/she/it to add to the sentence.

Ernie's answer:

It is very possible, as you suspected, that the same thing can happen in the third person (he/she/it/they) -- there will be no noun(s) expressed as subject, and only the form of the verb indicates if the subject is "he/she/it" or "they." Number 18 in the Exercises for Chapter Two, on page 358, is an example of this: Laudare puellam debent. ("Puellam" is not the subject; it is the object of the praise mentioned.)

Don't miss the important clues that the noun endings give you in the sentence: they tell you if the noun is being used as the subject, or as something else. Pages 9-11 discuss this. It's quite different from what we are used to in English, but it is vital, so if it is unclear what it means -- I remember it was unclear to me the first several times I read it -- write back and ask about it.

In the sentence, "The ancient gate is large", "large" is an adjective, describing the "ancient gate", right? So should "large" then agree with the nominative form of "gate"?

Kirk's answer:

Absolutely correct! porta antiqua est magna.

When using the possessive "of", we use the genitive. Now if I want to translate "the girl's clothes" (in other words, the clothes of the girl), I would use the genitive for "girl". This is where my question comes. Do I use the accusative for clothes? Is this always the case (no pun intended)?

The case of "clothes" depends on what its role is in the sentence.

If the sentence were "The girl's clothes were very pretty," "clothes" would be in the nominative.

If the sentence were, "Her mother washed the girl's clothes," then "clothes" would be accusative (since the clothes are what the mother washed).

In the sentence, "Her little brother made a tent with the girl's clothes," "clothes" would be ablative.

In the sentence, "She bought some piping for the girl's clothes," "clothes" would be dative.

and in the sentence, "The embroidery of the girl's clothes was ornate," "clothes" would be genitive."

But in all these sentences, "girl's" would always be modifying clothes, and would always be genitive.

In the vocab list under philosophia, it says for definition - Greek PHILOSOPHIA, love of wisdom. Does this mean it is a greek word?

Meredith's answer:

Yes. Wheelock has transliterated it (put it into our alphabet rather than the Greek alphabet) but it's a Greek compound word. The "philos" part means "beloved" and the "sophia" part means "wisdom", so "wisdom-lover".

Ernie's answer:

Yes. It was a Greek word originally, and the Romans borrowed it. Just as "philosophy" came into English from Latin (and so originally from Greek).

If you use the idiom "poenAs dare", do you conjugate "dare" to agree with the person and number? And do you also change poenAs to singular or plural depending on the sentence?

Meredith's answer:

Treat "dare" as you would any other verb. PoenAs was often used as a plural form with singular meaning -- or, for all I know, maybe the Romans thought that it was difficult to be punished in just one way at a time, e.g., the shame of being punished would itself be a punishment. But that's guessing. "Poenam" does occur as well, so if you'd be more comfortable using "poenam," go for it.

Ernie's answer:

"Poenas" stays in the plural and in the accusative case (as the direct object of dare), when it is used in this idiomatic expression. Think of it as "paying [giving] the penalties" for whatever misdeed has been done. The verb (do) changes form in the usual way -- do poenas (I), das poenas (you, singular), dat (he/she/it), etc.

In the idiom "poEnAs dAre, I'm assuming that I should conjugate dAre to agree with the verb - as in "they are paying the penalty" would be "poEnAs dAnt sunt"

Not quite. "do" is a perfectly good verb all by itself, so you don't need to put "sunt" in to help it. "PoEnAs dant."

I just don't know where to start in this one. "If your land is strong, nothing terrifies the sailors and you ought to praise your great fortune."

Treat it as three separate units:
If your land is strong
nothing terrifies the sailors
and you ought to praise your great fortune.

The trick to the first one is that Wheelock's wants "valeO, -Ere" "to be strong" as the verb. Wheelock's wants you to do the second one like SA 10, changed appropriately. And the third one is an "ought", so debeO, -Ere plus infinitive for the verb. You will learn a better way to do "ought" sentences much, much later in the course.

Okay; I've got "Si patria vales, nauta nihil terrent et fortUnam magnam tuam laudAre debes." Is that right?"

Sebastian's answer:

All right... let's examine the three clauses of the sentence one by one.

1) 'If your land is strong'

your version: si patria vales

This is a sub-ordinate clause introduced by the conjunction 'if', the Latin equivalent of which is 'si'; so far so good. Consider the Latin translation of 'if the fatherland is strong': here, the subject is 'patria', the fatherland. Now, it is not 'you' who is strong, but rather, a third party, 'the fatherland', so the verb 'to be strong' should agree with the subject in the third person: 'valet'. Now, we have 'si patria valet' for 'if the fatherland is strong'. However, we're not speaking of any old fatherland, but, specifically 'your' fatherland. How do we add this concept of 'your'? Just as in English, 'if the fatherland is strong' -> 'if your fatherland is strong', we add a possessive adjective 'your', 'tuus' in Latin, not change the verb to the second person. (I think only the feminine form of 'tuus', 'tua', has been introduced at this stage, but since 'patria' is feminine, this is, in any case, the relevant form.) After all, it is not now 'you' that is strong, but still the fatherland, although it so happens that it is 'your' fatherland. So, we modify 'patria' with 'tua', which, must, of course, agree with 'patria' in case, number and gender. Thus, in the feminine, nominative, singular, 'si patria tua valet' for 'if your land is strong', or, rather, 'si terra tua valet', since 'patria' does really mean 'fatherland' rather than plain 'land'.

2) 'nothing terrifies the sailors'

your version: nautae nihil terrent

What is the subject of this clause, i.e., what terrifies? 'Nothing'. Thus, 'nihil' is the subject. What is the direct object of this clause, i.e., what does nothing terrify? The sailors, 'nautae', but, since it is the direct object, it must be in the accusative case, 'nautas'. The verb 'to terrify' is 'terreo', but it must agree with the third person singular subject 'nihil', thus, 'terret'. Therefore, we have 'nihil nautas terret'.

As it stands, your version says 'the sailors terrify nothing', since 'nautae' is in the nominative plural, and therefore the subject. The sense of the clause is therefore reversed, but, if you had instead used the verb 'to fear' rather than 'to terrify', i.e., 'timeo' rather than 'terreo', it would have been all right: 'nautae nihil timent', 'the sailors fear nothing'.

3) 'you ought to praise your great fortune'

fortUnam magnam tuam laudAre debes

Well... this is correct, so there is little to be said. You have used the correct form of 'laudo', to praise. Remember that a clause should only have one finite verb, and than is 'ought', so 'to praise' should be in the infinitive, i.e., 'laudare'. C.f. English 'ought to praise', where 'to praise' is the infinitive. Note that if you are going to indicate vowel length, the second person singular of 'dEbeO' is 'dEbEs', where both e's are long.

In SA #3 is the word DA. Is this some form of the verb dare?

Meredith's answer:

Yes, the present imperative singular.

Ernie's answer:

Yes. This is explained very briefly at the top of page 5 in chapter 1.

I am having trouble with the meaning of sentence 6. The best I could come up with is: The old Fatherland often praises but rejects luck as a way of life?????

Mark J. Reed's answer: The Wheelock's sentences are weird enough that I have yet to be able to get them right by just looking at the word glosses and guessing. Painstaking grammatical analysis is required - at least until I get more of an intuitive grasp for the grammar; hopefully someday it won't be as painstaking. :) I do still look at it a word at a time, but I look at the endings, not just the meaning. I don't know if this will be any help at all, but my analysis of the above sentence runs something like this: Fortunam - "fortune", accusative singular. The accusative case means it has to be the object of the verb, so somebody's doing something to fortune. et - "and" - okay, someone's doing something to fortune and to something else. vitam - "life", accusative. Whatever's happening is happening to both "fortune" and "life". antiquae - "old". Feminine, either plural nominative, singular genitive, or singular dative. The adjective can't apply to "fortunam", "vitam", or "fortunam et vitam" because it's not in the accusative. So something else is old, but we don't know what yet, or how it relates to the fortune and life. patriae - "fatherland". Again, plural nominative, singular genitive, or singular dative. Whichever it is, we've found the noun being described by "antiquae". So either the old fatherlands are doing something to luck and life (nominative plural); something is doing luck and life to the old fatherland (dative singular); or something is doing something to the luck and life of the old fatherland (genitive singular). The last one seems the most likely so far. saepe - "often". So whatever is happening is doing so frequently. laudas - "you praise". Finally we have a verb! Since the subject is "you", we know that "antiquae patriae" can't be the subject, so it's not nominative plural. And "praise" can't take an indirect object, so it's not dative singular. Which means it must be genitive singular. That gives us "you often praise the fortune and life of the old fatherland". Which would be a complete sentence in English or Latin, but we're not done yet. sed - "but". So you praise the old fortune and life, but . . . recusas - "you reject" But you reject them. So putting it all together into English, you have "You often praise but reject the fortune and life of the old fatherland"

In SA #7, "ME vItAre turbam iubEs, how do I determine which is the direct object of iubEs, ME or turbam?"

It's a double direct object -- one's the direct object of "iubes"; the other of "vitare". The only way to tell for certain which the writer meant would be to check against the sentence's context. I would be inclined to expect the sentence to mean "You order me to avoid the crowd," because "me" is mentioned before "turbam" and stands in a position of emphasis, but the other meaning is grammatically possible. Unless the writer is striving for effect, the object of a verb will normally be near that verb, which isn't much use here but is helpful to recall in longer sentences. Also, more often than not, words which belong together in clauses are adjacent to one another.

In SA #7, what is the form of the verb "vitAre"?

It's a "present active infinitive", and in this case it's a "complementary infinitive," completing the action of the verb. You order me...well, order me to *what*? To avoid. It's called an infinitive because there are no limits on it -- it's not restricted to first, second or third person. Here's a nice page on Latin infinitives. You might want to ignore the bit at the bottom of the Latin-infinitive page about "indirect discourse" for now. Indirect discourse is important, but it's also complicated, and it's definitely not anything you need to know about yet.

I found SA #8 to be very confusing. What's the case of "philosophiae"?

It's dative singular. "I give myself to philosophy." And I grant you that it's a thoroughly weird sentence.

In SA 18, one of the words is 'strong'. What is the best vocab word to use here?

Kathy F.'s answer:

Look back at the chapter 1 verb list: valeO, valEre ... This means to be strong, have power, be well. You need to use the 3rd person singular form of this verb.

Anybody gotten a look at the TR for Chap 2 yet? (I think)I can figure each of the words, but putting them together is getting me a very weird sounding sentence. Best I have is "My girl I don't love you."

Linda's answer:

How about "My girl does not love me."?

Puella is the nominative, so it's the subject. "The only other form spelled "puella" is the ablative, but that has the macron over the "a", so it can't be the ablative.) The verb "amat" is he, she or it loves. Since the subject is a she, it would be "girl does not love". I still get confused by the various forms and uses of "me" or "mea", but with the subject and verb identified, it doesn't seem such a stretch to translate "mea" as "my" and "me" as, well "me".