Lesson 31: 20% Nouns

Learning the remaining 20% of nouns in your dictionary.

Recall that Block 1 makes up 40% of Latin nouns and 50% of Latin adjectives.
Block 2 also makes up 40% of Latin nouns and 50% of the adjectives.
This leaves the remaining 20% of nouns, which can be divided in 2 groups (traditionally called the 4th and 5th declension).

1. Looking in your dictionary, we see nouns such as

manus, manus -f. = hand spiritus, spiritus -m. = spirit

vultus, vultus -m. = face fructus, us -m. = fruit

Forming the different function of the "-us, -us" noun

Note: there are a few neuter nouns that look like "genu, genus -n. = knee", therefore they form slightly different in the subject and object:

N.B.

• Here, the accent marks the long vowels: therefore the subject: manus, is actually different then the plural: manùs
• The rules still apply for neuter nouns: subject and object are the same, and plural subject and object ends in "a".
• Some nouns in this group were in Block 1 in ancient Latin: "senatus,us -m. = senate" was originally "senatus,i", similarly "domus,us -f. = house" was "domus,i".

2. Looking in your dictionary, we see nouns such as

species, speciei -f. = appearance res, rei -f. = thing facies, faciei -f. = face

fides, fidei -f. = faith dies, diei -c. = day

Forming the different function of the "-es, -ei" noun

N.B.

• E.g. "de fide" = concerning the faith; "rerum novarum" = of new things; "de re publica" = about the public thing = "de republica"
• "meridies, ei -f" = noon, midday; so AM = "ante meridiem" = before noon
• While a small percentage of the language, this group includes several important words. Most of them are feminine.

First Experience Latin - Fr. Reginald Foster

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