CHAPTER 11: PARSE

1.  When we know what declension a noun belongs to and what its LF is, we are ready to parse it. 

2.  To parse a noun is to identify its case, number and gender. 

3.  In theory, case and number are separate:  the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative are different from singular and plural.  In reality, case and number have fused.  To prove this, look at the noun table.  If in look at –am, you can see that –am is both accusative and singular; you cannot say that one part of –am marks the accusative and the other part marks the singular. 

4.  The procedure for parsing is to reduce an oblique noun is as follows.
1.  Reduce to its lexical form (LF).
2.  Inspect the 2^nd principal part to determine declension-membership (and gender from dictionary).
3.  Parse oblique form based on declension membership.

Ex.  Parse rēgī. 
1.  First, I figure out its LF from the dictionary or vocabulary—rex.
2.  Second, I use the 2^nd principal part (rēgis), to discover its declension—3^rd.  The dictionary also supplies its gender (m.).
3.  Finally, I match the ending of rēgī to the case in the 3^rd declension column to decide that it is dat. sg. m.
 

1st	2nd (m.)	2nd (n.)	3rd	3rd (n.)	4th	5th	case	no.
a	us	um	*	*	us	ēs	nom.	sg.
ae	ī	ī	is	is	ūs	eī	gen.	sg.
ae	ō	ō	ī	ī	uī	eī	dat.	sg.
am	um	um	em	*	um	em	acc.	sg.
ā	ō	ō	e	e	ū	ē	abl.	sg.
ae	ī	a	ēs	a	ūs	ēs	nom.	pl.
ārum	ōrum	ōrum	um	um	uum	ērum	gen.	pl.
īs	īs	īs	ibus	ibus	ubus	ēbus	dat.	pl.
ās	ōs	a	ēs	a	ūs	ēs	acc.	pl.
īs	īs	īs	ibus	ibus	ubus	ēbus	abl.	pl.

Exercise.  Use the three steps given in 4 above to parse each noun.  If there is more than one possible parse, provide them, too.  (The sentence in which the word appears will determine which parse is correct.)  Remember that there is no unique case for the LF in the 3^rd declension.  E.g., the LF of patris is pater.  The LF of a 3rd declension noun can only be determined by the dictionary, not by the table. 

1.  poētīs 
2.  Perseō
3.  Perseus
4.  fīlius
5.  Iovis
6.  deōrum
7.  avus  
8.  Acrisius
9.  Perseum
10.  nepōtem
11.  ōrāculum
12.  puerum
13.  somnō
14.  mātre
15.  arcā
16.  arcam
17.  mare
18.  Perseī
19.  māter
20.  tempestās
21.  sinū
22.  mātris
23.  Alcmēnae
24.  Graeciā
25.  hominum
26.  rēgīna
27.  deōrum
28.  Alcmēnam
29.  serpentīs
30.  puerī
31.  cubiculum
32.  Alcmēnae
33.  frātre
34.  scūtō
35.  serpentēs
36.  scūtum