In Latin, there are only 3 real patterns to a sentence. You have used all of
them.
The kind of verb used determines which pattern is used.
Linking verb, transitive verb, intransitive verb.
Magistra is a teacher.
You are a student.
You are not lazy.
The house was a school.
The school will be large.
Magistra teaches students.
Students learn the language.
You hear stories.
Anna carries water.
Does Marcus love Cornelia?
Subject ,linking verb, complement
Subject, transitive verb, direct object
The boys are walking.
The students walk to school.
The soldiers depart from the camp. Subject, intransitive verb
We move into the town.
The children run.
The children run with friends.
The senators gather in the Curia.
What’s the difference between these “transitive” verbs and the
“intransitive” verbs?
How would you characterize, describe them? What do you observe about
the way in which they are used?
______________________________ ______________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
The TRANSITIVE verb shows
an action which goes (eo, ire, ivi, itus,a,um: to go) across (trans, across)
to something directly (the “direct” object)
Marcus’ love goes right to Cornelia. Magistra’s teaching goes right (she
hopes!) to her students.
The INTRANSITIVE verb shows an action that stops dead with the subject.
It doesn’t go anywhere. See how silly it sounds if you try to put a direct
object with one of these verbs:
The
The
The
The
students walk
soldiers depart (you cannot “depart” something)
children run
students graduate
Watch out—Don’t be tricked: in English we very very often use a noun
after one of these verbs
I walk my dog You run a race
Are you really walking the dog (making his 4 legs move) or are you actually
taking a walk “with” your dog?
Are you running a race (making the race do the running) or are you really
running “in” a race?What about the soldiers departing?
The students graduating?
Poor intransitive verbs. They don’t qualify for a direct object.
But, to make up for this, they commonly get to have prepositional phrases
which expand their meaning. Go back to the list of intransitive verb
sentences above, and underline the prepositional phrases.
Here’s something to remember:
you can only get an accusative near an intransitive verb if it’s
inside a prepositional phrase.
Now put into Latin all of those sentences showing the 3 basic patterns of
the Latin sentence and labe each sentence with its type.
Subject+linking verb+ complement [S Lv C]
Subject+ direct object+ transitive verb [S DO Tv
Subject + intransitive verb [S Iv]