CHAPTER 1: SEPARATE CASE FROM BASE

1.  Every noun can be divided into a base and a case. 

2.  The base is a string of letters which indicates the DICTIONARY CONTENT (what is denoted by the noun).  Any person (man, woman, child, policeman, doctor, lawyer, etc.), place (lake, mountain, sky, house, etc.) or thing (telephone, computer, table, window, etc.) can be the dictionary content of the base. 

3.  The case is the part that indicates additional information about the noun, such as number.

4.  Number is a quality denoting that there is only one instance of the noun (the SINGULAR number) or many (the PLURAL number).

5.  The letter attached to the noun to indicate the plural number is called the plural marker.

Ex1.  The plural marker of cats is -s.

Ex2.  The plural marker of children is -ren.

Ex3.  The plural marker of oxen is -en.

6.  By contrast, in English the singular is usually UNMARKED.  A word is unmarked if it is unchanged from its DICTIONARY FORM.

Ex1.  There is no singular marker for cat, so it is unmarked.

Ex2.  The plural of deer is the same as the singular, so it is unmarked.

Ex3.  The title of the Dr. Seuss book One Fish, Two Fish shows that the plural of fish is unmarked.

Obs.  The dictionary form of geese is goose, that of men is man, that of students is student, that of bird’s is bird etc.

7.  In Latin the situation is very different, because there are many endings which have many other kinds of additional information. 

8.  Here are most of the cases we will meet in Latin.

CASES

a, ae, am, ā, ārum, īs, ās

us, ī, ō, um, ōrum, īs, ōs

um, ī, ō, a, ōrum, īs, ōs

er, ī, ō, um, ōrum, īs, ōs

?, is, ī, em, e, ēs, um, ibus

is, ī, em, ī, ēs, ium, ibus, īs

?, is, ī, e, a, um, ibus

us, ūs, uī, um, uum, ū, ibus

ēs, eī, em, ē, ērum, ēbus

 

9.  In English it is easy to divide a noun into base and case. 

Ex1.  Dogs = dog + s

Ex2.  Children = child + ren

Ex3.  Tim’s = Tim + ’s

Ex4.  boys’ = boy + s’

10.  In Latin we use the CASES table.

Ex1.  Divide mensam. 

We divide mensam into two parts:  the base (mēns-) and the case (-am).  We know that -am is the case because when we refer to the table from we find -am, not -sam, -nsam, etc. 
Ex2.  Divide puerorum.

In this chapter we cannot tell that the correct division is puer + orum.  The rule of selecting the longer case will tell us not to divide as pueror + um.

Exercise

Divide each of the following words into base and case. 

1.  dominus

2.  fīliī

3.  deō

4.  terram

5.  rēgibus

6.  diem

7.  deōrum

8.  deum

9.  manū

10.  domuī 

11.  nominis

12.  populum

13.  verba

14.  virīs

15.  hominēs

16.  faciem

17.  cōnspectūs

18.  tempore

19.  fratribus

20.  principem

21.  animās

22.  corde

23.  viam

24.  gentium

25.  vōcem