Adjectives:
-
An adjective is a word that describes a noun (a person, place or thing).
The guy on the couch ate all the delicious pizza.
The adjective “delicious” here describes the noun “pizza.”
Latin adjectives have the same function.
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Servus bonus amabat puellam. (The good slave used to love the girl.)
The adjective “bonus” here describes the noun “servus”
Just as nouns in Latin, adjectives follow declensions and have different endings depending on
what they are doing in the sentence. Since adjectives describe nouns, adjectives in Latin depend
on nouns for their ending. This means that the adjective and the noun in Latin have to agree in
gender, number and case. But they do not have to agree in declension, so noun and adjectives
may look like they have different endings when in fact they are the same. For example:
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Laudo leonem bonum. (I praise the good lion.)
The adjective “bonum” here describes the noun “leonem”
While the “um” ending and the “em” ending look different, they are in fact the same;
they are masculine, singular and accusative, agreeing in gender, number and case.
They look different because “bonum” is a second declension adjective and “leonem” is a
third declension noun.
Dictionary Entries
To help students deal with adjective and noun endings, any decent Latin dictionary will provide
the gender and declension of every noun and adjective. It does this the following way:
Nouns:
Servus, i, m.
“Servus” is the nominative singular form of the noun.
The “i” next to the word provides the genitive singular ending; this tells you what declension the
noun is. This is necessary because all genitive singulars look different; you may have noticed
that some nominative singulars of different declensions look the same and many nominatives of
the third declension look different, so we need the genitive. For example:
“leo” and “virtus” are both nominative singular nouns of the third declension. But by looking at
the nominative singular endings, we may accidentally guess that virtus is a second declension,
like servus because of the “us” ending. But if we look up “virtus” in the dictionary, we will find
virtus, virtutis f. and the “is” genitive ending will tell us that it is a third declension.
Adjectives:
Bonus, bona, bonum
For adjectives, the dictionary provides the nominative singular masculine, feminine and neuter
forms.
Adjective endings: notice they are the same as the noun endings you already know!
SG
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Abl.
Masculine
Bonus
Boni
Bono
Bonum
Bono
Feminine
Bona
Bonae
Bonae
Bonam
Bonā
Neuter
Bonum
Boni
Bono
Bonum
Bono
PL
Nom.
Gen.
Dat.
Acc.
Abl.
Masculine
Boni
Bonorum
Bonis
Bonos
Bonis
Feminine
Bonae
Bonarum
Bonis
Bonas
Bonis
Neuter
Bona
Bonorum
Bonis
Bona
Bonis
Practice:
Write the following sentences in Latin, paying attention to proper use of the cases and agreement
(in gender, number and case) between nouns and adjectives.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The good girl gives good money to the good merchant.
The good dog finds the good bedrooms.
The good sailor gives a good gift to the good girl.
The good masters praise the good wine.
The good baker gives good bread to the good dogs.
Girl – puella, ae, f.
Money – pecunia, ae, f.
Merchant – Mercator, I , m.
Dog – canis, is, n
Sailor – nauta, ae, m.
Gift – donum, I, n.