Talk:Latin grammar

message: Stuff like "Latin has six declensions" and too many examples to count of mnemonic devices one teacher came up with somewhere being included as universal rules smack of OR. I understand that it's quirky that "3rd i-stem" is not considered a separate declension, but it isn't. Such weird deviations from the way every Latin textbook on Earth states things to be don't belong here when uncited. DarthSquidward (talk) 22:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the page is just confused between declensions and cases. (I fear to look at the Latin declension page...) Adam Bishop (talk) 09:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lots of original research on this page 

message: singular
plural
1st Decl.
ae
īs
2nd Decl.
ī
īs
3rd Decl.
ī (e)
ibus
I dont know a whole lot about the locative but I know the endings.  When it is used, it is instead of using Ablative Place Where only with: Names of Cities, Towns, Domus (noun for home) and Rūs (country, opposite of city).  When it is used ALL prepositions are omitted.
Do any of you think that a section about the locative should be put in like there are sections about the other cases?  I have a book with all of this grammar stuff in it and I could type a few pages of it up during my midterms next week.  I'm in high school and my midterms will be easy except for Latin because we have to memorize like 600 lines, its AP Latin Vergil.  Sigh... BenWhitey 01:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Locative Endings 

message: Thank you Adam Bishop and Lucius for cleaning up the mess.Philx 12:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks for cleaning up

message: We should merge the Latin grammar page into the Latin declension and Latin conjugation page. Most of the elements which are in the grammar page are already on the other two; namely, the charts. Or, just remove the grammar page all together, and focus on the grammar of nouns and verbs on the subsequent other two pages. good, bad, mediocre idea? 01:37, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
I've suggested it. Does anyone disagree? My only concern is that this article is getting a bit long, but otherwise the conjugation and declension articles contain much of the same information (the conjugation article is more in-depth), just formatted differently.--Wasabe3543 07:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there are a lot of grammatical topics that are not appropriate for the declension and conjugation pages, so a complete merger of this page is ill-advised.  As far as the charts being merged, yes, I agree with that.  Tables of paradigms will make this article too long and distract from interesting discussion.-lethe talk 12:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

text: That's how the page on Sanskrit appears. - Christopher 00:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose. Latin conjugation and Latin declension are too huge to merge, moreover the Latin grammar article is too big itself. Brandmeister 18:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's so big because it's ridden with redundancy. -Christopher 19:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Separate! When I refer to it, I know what I need already! All the grammar articles should be broken out into major tabular sections. StrangerInParadise 09:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Keep these articles separate. Far too cumbersome to place these topics all on one page. Latin conjugations and declensions are certainly worthy of their own articles. I support placing summaries on this page and linking to the main page. Definately do not merge this page with the main Latin page! Mysterius 03:26, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate to have to quote The Offspring here, but "Keep 'em separated."--Jpbrenna 23:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge this with [[Latin conjugation]] and [[Latin declension]]? 

message: * Support. See reasons listed above. J. Finkelstein 19:55, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote for merge of [[Latin declension]] and [[Latin conjugation]] with [[Latin grammar]] 

message: The gerundive shows obligation, not futurity. It can be useful for people learning the language to identify the gerundive with the FPP, but it must be stressed that they are not the same thing. GenericGabriel 22:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not entirely true, since the gerundive is used to make  the Passive periphrastic conjugation one can asume that it is a future passive participle 189.145.97.14 05:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Gerundive is NOT a Future Passive Participle! 

message: Could somebody please put in some tables for the pronouns 'is, ea, id', 'ille, illa, illud', and 'hic, haec, hoc', as well as of the relative pronound 'qui, quae, quod'? It just looks sort of disconnected from the rest of the article - since the rest of it is so comprehensive, the lack of in-depth text in one area makes the article look a bit patched up.
CASE	M sing	F sing	N sing
nom.	is    	ea    	id
gen.	eius  	eius  	eius
dat.	ei    	ei    	ei
acc.	eum   	eam   	id
abl.	eo    	ea    	eo
CASE	M plur   	F plur   	N plur
nom.	ii (ei)  	eae      	ea
gen.	eorum    	earum    	eorum
dat.	iis (eis)	iis (eis)	iis (eis)
acc.	eos      	eas      	ea
abl.	iis (eis)	iis (eis)	iis (eis)
CASE	M  sing	F sing	N sing
nom.	ille   	illa  	illud
gen.	illius 	illius	illius
dat.	illi   	illi  	illi
acc.	illum  	illam 	illud
abl.	illo   	illa  	illo
CASE	M plur 	F plur 	N plur
nom.	illi   	illae  	illa
gen.	illorum	illarum	illorum
dat.	illis  	illis  	illis
acc.	illos  	illas  	illa
abl.	illis  	illis  	illis
CASE	M sing	F sing	N sing
nom.	hic   	haec  	hoc
gen.	huius 	huius 	huius
dat.	huic  	huic  	huic
acc.	hunc  	hanc  	hoc
abl.	hoc   	hac   	hoc
CASE	M plur	F plur	N plur
nom.	hi    	hae   	haec
gen.	horum 	harum 	horum
dat.	his   	his   	his
acc.	hos   	has   	haec
abl.	his   	his   	his
CASE	M sing	F sing	N sing
nom.	iste  	ista  	istud
gen.	istius	istius	istius
dat.	isti  	isti  	isti
acc.	istum 	istam 	istud
abl.	isto  	ista  	istud
CASE	M plur 	F plur 	N plur
nom.	isti   	istae  	ista
gen.	istorum	istarum	istorum
dat.	istis  	istis  	istis
acc.	istos  	istas  	ista
abl.	istis  	istis  	istis
CASE	M sing	F sing	N sing
nom.	qui   	quae  	quod
gen.	cuius 	cuius 	cuius
dat.	cui   	cui   	cui
acc.	quem  	quam  	quod
abl.	quo   	qua   	quo
CASE	M plur	F plur	N plur
nom.	qui   	quae  	quae
gen.	quorum	quarum	quorum
dat.	quibus	quibus	quibus
acc.	quos  	quas  	quae
abl.	quibus	quibus	quibus
CASE	M sing 	F sing 	N sing
nom.	idem   	eadem  	idem
gen.	eiusdem	eiusdem	eiusdem
dat.	eidem  	eidem  	eidem
acc.	eundem 	eandem 	idem
abl.	eodem  	eadem  	eodem
CASE	M plur         	F plur         	N plur
nom.	iidem (eidem)  	eaedem         	eadem
gen.	eorundem       	earundem       	eorundem
dat.	iisdem (eisdem)	iisdem (eisdem)	iisdem (eisdem)
acc.	eosdem         	easdem         	eadem
abl.	iisdem (eisdem)	iisdem (eisdem)	iisdem (eisdem)
CASE	M sing	F sing	N sing
nom.	ipse  	ipsa  	ipsum
gen.	ipsius	ipsius	ipsius
dat.	ipsi  	ipsi  	ipsi
acc.	ipsum 	ipsam 	ipsum
abl.	ipso  	ipsa  	ipso
CASE	M plur 	F plur 	N plur
nom.	ipsi   	ipsae  	ipsa
gen.	ipsorum	ipsarum	ipsorum
dat.	ipsis  	ipsis  	ipsis
acc.	ipsos  	ipsas  	ipsa
abl.	ipsis  	ipsis  	ipsis
--Stefano 21:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is, Ea, Id 

message: Each page to a certain degree overlaps with the other. How can we organize each page so that they each will cover their own separate topics? Should Latin grammar focus on indo European influences on the Latin language? Nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are declined, so the declension page should focus on those. Likewise, verbs are conjugated, so the Conjugation page should focus on verbs. That leaves the Grammar page. What should that focus on, if nouns and verbs are already covered? All of it as of now is terrible unorganized and redundant. Is there any reason why we shouldn't combine all three pages? It seems like that would simplify a great deal of information. Suggestions? - Christopher 21:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latin Grammar, Declension, and Conjugation still have a lot of redundant information 

message: First of all, I removed all the charts, which over the next few days, I'll add properly to the declension and conjugation pages. I think charts say a lot more than paragraphs when trying to describe cases and conjugations. They're easier for the eyes, and easier to interpret. The fact that vocative endings are similar to nominative is easier to discern from a chart than from something written out; e.g. from the previous version: 
This generally looks exactly like Nominative, except in second declension masculine nouns ending in "us" where the "us" is turned to an "e", and second declension masculine nouns ending in "ius", where the "ius" is turned into "ī". E.g., "servus" becomes "serve", and "filius" becomes "filī"
The specifics should be discussed on the declension page. 
I've tried to reduce the amount of redundant information and clarify many of the topics discussed. I expanded the opening into a paragraph, as well as many of the sections. I added a section on adverbs. I incorporated the both the page on word order and the ablative absolute because I felt they were too small to merit a page of their own. I modified them both slightly for clarity.
I removed the section on Latin sentence construction and rules of subordination because it focused on was word order, which I felt that through the examples above, it's pretty obvious that there's a variable word order in Latin.
I still think the page remains in an unfinished state and I'm sure that it's still missing some more detailed information, but on the whole, it's looking pretty good. Suggestions, comments? - Christopher 07:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On my update 

message: I recently encountered a sentence (don't have the exact sentence with me now) with the following structure:
Name (of person) explicavit, et Name2, et Name3 et Name4 et Name5 plural-verb....
A translator grouped it like this:  Name1 and Name2 explained, and Name3, Name4, etc.  ....
Would it be more appropriate to translate the first verb in the singular and handle the first et as "as did Name2"?   Or is it a common enough  construction to turn the singular verb into plural with the et?  The author is 5th century.   Thanks!  Zeusnoos 14:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's hard to tell if we don't have the whole sentence. Do you know who the author was? Was the plural verb also a form of explicare? Presumably the first guy explained something, and the other people agreed with him later. Adam Bishop 15:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Omnia emin, quae Name1 explicavit et Name2 et quae Name3, Name4 et Name5 ediderunt, [et] ceterique omnes huius artis scii.  Zeusnoos 21:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm...well are you sure that is the whole sentence? I found this on Google: "Omnia enim quae Aesculapio Mercurius et Anubis (?) tradiderunt, quae Petosiris explicavit et Nechepso, et quae Abram, Orpheus et Critodemus ediderunt ceterique omnes hujus artis scii ... perscripsimus", from a book about Greek astrology. I would say that means "We reported everything which Mercury and Anubis told to Aesculapius, and which Petosiris explained to Nechepso, and which Abram, Orpheus and Critodemus, and all others skilled in this art, taught." The "quae Petosiris explicavit et Nechepso" bit is a little strange but everything seems to match. Adam Bishop 22:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I find your suggested translation of making the second person dative interesting - I wanted to do that, but the et was in the way (I wonder if it was added by a transcriber or editor).  I deliberately left the names out to focus only on this segment of the sentence and to not introduce bias by how the names are historically grouped in other writers.  If you are correct that P explains to N, then my hypothesis about these writers has more support.  Thank you.  Zeusnoos 04:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question for experts 

message: Cornelia pulcherior puella est quam Flavia
Shouldn't that be pulchrior? Peter1968 17:09, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and it is also somewhat irregular, so I put it with the irregular list, and switched it with fortis, which is what the example was using previously. Adam Bishop 18:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I have no problem with a rewrite. Are you volunteering? I don't have enough energy to contribute much to it, beyond the occasional error correction should the need arise (a.k.a. sniping from the sidelines :) Rwflammang (talk) 23:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adjectives...pulcherior 

message: People are complaining about redundancy - well, I think a more comprehensive topic would include how Latin grammar evolved, especially in regard to its PIE roots. I'm rather curious since it only mentions PIE a few times. John Riemann Soong 21:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello John, it is a propos to me that you should have brought this up. Since you did a lot of work has been done on the classification of Latin and the boxes to the right have been devised. What everyone has been putting off however is an article on Proto-Latin. At this very moment I am building one in a word file but I hope someone will beat me to it. All the major references listed in these articles do in fact discuss the evolution of Latin. We have articles now on Italic languages, Osco-Umbrian and Faliscan even though some are stubs. To me Proto-Latin is worth the candle - it might be tied in to prehistory in Latium - another topic people seem to be avoiding or putting off. All we get are some centuries-old statements about the Italic tribes roaming through the area and replacing the native squirrels with Indo-European pioneers. It reminds me of some British historians I have read who like to talk about the total replacement of the Celts in Britain with Anglo-Saxons and how there is no trace now of any Celts. This kind of jingoism ought to go into the trash can and we ought to stand up to it. We need an article on Proto-Latin.Dave (talk) 12:43, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  where is this page headed  

message: I have been trying to learn latin from a number of different sources, and need to know, does latin feature any accents? Some pages show use of accents, some show none at all, and almost all show different accents. Which one is the true one?
Elbbom 10:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean accents on letters or accents of speech? Latin does have pronounced accents, but they are normally weak compared to English ones. As for accents on letters, a horizontal line designates that a verb is long, but this is usually left out and instead is implied. Sometimes Latin texts show which syllable takes the accent (for instance, amâre). RedRabbit1983 01:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accents 

message: How does one say, the king said that the youths had been very brave. Da G007 (talk) 22:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In classical Latin this sentence does not have the word "that", they use a construction called "accusative infinitive". I would translate it as "Rex pueros fuisse fortiores dixit". Adam Bishop (talk) 02:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Mostly right, but the superlative fortissimos should be used (fortiores means 'somewhat brave'), and iuvenes is better than 'pueros'. In vulgar and non-classical Latin in general (Christian, post-classical) it is possible to use conjunctions such as quod or even quia and quoniam. Iblardi (talk) 17:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  That? 

message: Is this an actual 'Latin' phrase?
If so, what does it translate into in modern English, wroughly!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.138.204.27 (talk) 15:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's neither Latin, nor any other language, according to Google. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't believe 'debris' is a Latin word, but comes from French. Petronivs (talk) 17:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arte Et Debris 

message: Vivus Caesar means "Caesar alive". Its ablative form is vivo Caesare, which means "when Caesar was alive". In this case, vivo is an ablative adjective; it is not a finite verb. Victus (the adjective, not the noun) means "defeated", not "alive". The correct phrase definitely is not victo Caesare. Rwflammang (talk) 13:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, Eldaran and I were talking about this on our user talk pages. I figured it would be better to change the phrase entirely. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good change. I just got confused by the edit comments. Rwflammang (talk) 17:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Almost men, not quite. The construction is a form of the ablative absolute, it is not an ordinary noun with modifier. You would never use it in the nominative, as it would mean "the living Caesar" as opposed to "the dead Caesar". As only the living Caesar would ever do anything there would be no need to contrast the living and dead. If he were doing it anyone could see he was alive. The ablative absolute construction, on the other hand, means "when Caesar was alive." It is used as a shorthand for lengthier subordinate clauses starting with cum. Somewhere in there is an understood form of the linking verb "be": Caesar having been alive", but there is no appropriate form so they just understood one. Sometimes you might even see a one-word absolute so the ability to spot the construction is essential to its translation. Most Latin II texts go into it in some detail. If you just do an Internet search all the best grammars will be available to you at a touch: Gildersleeve, Harkness, what have you. Wheelock must be around there somewhere. Seek and ye shall find.Dave (talk) 17:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Vivo Caesare

message: I'm going to go over this article. I realize a lot have people have worked on this and put some affectionate care into it. If anyone disagrees with any changes I might make speak right up. For the time being I want to look at references and conclusions and try to match the content of the article to the discussion. I'm not perfect, you know, even though some of you might have thought I think I am. I don't. So I am going to make a real effort to avoid tags. A second objective is to clarify the technical linguistics a little - a little I say - by an example or an extra phrase or sentence here or there. I see the article has few or no tags. With so many editors I presume that is because no one wants to see them on there and I will try to respect that.Dave (talk) 12:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Going to do some work

message: This is a term from structural linguistics. It is a little heavy for the general run of readers. However, this term does not appear to be being used correctly. My source says that Latin is a left-branching language. It defines the head as that word or word segment that "assigns the syntactical function to its complement." In left-branching the complement goes to the left of the head and in right to the right. In syntactical branching these two elements are words; in morphological, segments. In syntactical the verb is nearly always the head. Romans tended to put it last; therefore, Latin is syntactically left-branching. In morphological, the inflectional affix is generally the head; again left-branching. The stated conclusion is that Latin is a left-branching language. I followed down the links on Wikipedia and our article is incomprehensible. You can understand from it neither the head nor the complement much less left- and right-branching. This is consonant with my perception of the specialized linguistics articles on Wikipedia, which are attracting a growing number of complaints. They were written in most cases by students with a double major of computers and linguistics. Without intending any insult, they appear to be writing above their heads linguistically; specifically, they cannot use the technical jargon properly. Since we do not understand it without someone explaining it in a user-friendly manner (I'm a tech writer, you know), no one can even know that it is wrong much less dare to correct or flag it. These articles are now collecting a growing number of tags requesting references. This article in fact has in effect no line-item references. Almost every good Wikipedia article has 70 or 80 line-item references or more. As I have been being bombed by quasi-linguistics students recently I do not wish to bomb this article. So, I am giving you notification of an impending change. My reference is "Grammaticalization: studies in Latin and Romance morphosyntax" By Jürgen Klausenburger and the pages are 28-35. Jurgen is quite sure Latin is left-branching. I plan to very briefly explain what he means by that and replace what we have on it. If you have another view, let's have your reference and a bit of explanation, please. Fold or draw, men, in this game of Wikipedia poker.Dave (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Latin is right-branching?

message: I last took Latin many, many years ago, and I recall pretty clearly my teacher telling me that "est natus" was not passive voice, but a special something else, though I can't recall what. Anyone know what I'm having trouble remembering?
If it's not passive voice, then perhaps another voice. If so, then the page's claim that there are two voices needs to be updated.JKeck (talk) 22:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's deponent, which means it only has passive forms. It is still considered passive, it's just that there is no active equivalent. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Est Natus" 

message: The article gives an example of passive with the wine 'was carried' as 'portatum est'.
Shouldn't it be either 'is carried' or 'portatum fuit'?
Kashikom (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No. "Portatum est" is the perfect passive, meaning "it was carried". "Portatum erat" is the pluperfect passive, "it had been carried, I don't think you would ever see "Portatum fuit", or at least it wouldn't be a normal verb tense; to me that looks like it should mean "it was something that was carried". "It is carried" is not a composite tense, it is just "portatur". Adam Bishop (talk) 18:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: (Actually I shouldn't say you never see "fuit" in the perfect passive, because you see it all the time in medieval and later Latin, but I don't think it's strictly correct, according to classical rules... Adam Bishop (talk) 18:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Perhaps there should be some sort of parenthetical remark about the discrepancy in the tenses of the English and Latin then, since presumably most people coming to the site will not be knowledgeable.  BTW, I did google 'portatum fuit' before posting here, and indeed the hits were from Renaissance examples rather than ancient native speakers.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kashikom (talk • contribs) 20:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I added an example in the present passive to show the difference between that and the perfect passive. Is that helpful? Adam Bishop (talk) 20:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that is helpful, thanks.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kashikom (talk • contribs) 01:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  portatum est or portatum fuit? 

message: The article has not yet received an importance rating. The Project Languages assessment page suggests ratings based on the importance of a language (where Latin would get a Top importance rating) but that is unhelpful in assessing sub-articles. I would assess this article's importance as High.
I consider that the quality of the article is greater than the "Start" that is currently assigned. I would assess it as "C". The only thing it needs to become "B" quality, IMO, would be a short discussion of participles.
I am not sure how ratings are assigned. Do we simply arrive at consensus here and slap on the assessment? Peter Chastain (talk) 23:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessing the article 

message: The article said:
"An English example appears in a line spoken by Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 1, Scene 1):
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, The rest I'd give to be to you translated."
In fact this ("Demetrius being bated") is a nominative absolute.
It then went on to say:
"Nevertheless, the construction is rarer and less natural in English than it is in Latin. It was introduced by early modern authors heavily influenced by Latin, for example, John Milton, whose Paradise Lost makes frequent use of the construction."
This needs to be justified.
Then
"This imitation is more common with the word "being" inserted, which can be thought "left out" in Latin (where a corresponding word does not exist): "The city having been captured, Aeneas fled" etc."
It is pointless to say that 'being' is left out in Latin; the participle does all the work. And the nominative absolute can have 'being' in English if it is passive, but doesn't if it is active. "The soldiers having eaten the cake, the queen left the bedroom."
In short, it is best to leave the burden of explanation of the nominative absolute to the article dedicated to it rather than have 'approximate' and questionable explanations here. Pliny (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder what the point is for discussing the English nominative absolute in an article on Latin grammar. This article has a link to the article on Absolute construction, and there are other articles on related instances such as Genitive absolute. TomS TDotO (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muddled thinking 

message: Should modal verbs, like posse, debere, solere, velle, be mentioned somewhere? -84.161.15.243 (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modal verbs 

message: The trouble with this article (without denying that much of it is valuable and useful) is that not only are there very few references to standard textbooks and authorities, but also many of the Latin examples appear to have been invented, without reference to what is actually found in Latin authors. For example, fortior puellarum - there is no example in the Perseus corpus of fortior followed by or preceded by a genitive in 121 examples; festina, serve! - there is no example in the whole of Latin literature (apart from in the New Testament) of servus used in the vocative case (Romans always said 'puer'); homo quidam - this occurs only in the New Testament (where it is presumably imitated from Greek), apart from once in Plautus; portatum est - neither this phrase, nor portatus est, nor portata est, occurs anywhere in the entire Perseus corpus of Latin literature; ira calefacta - no example of this phrase occurs in Latin literature either, nor does Lewis & Short's dictionary appear to give any example of the verb calefacio used in connection with ira. 
In short the article appears not to be describing Latin as such but an artificial tongue which is found only in textbooks, not in the pages of Cicero. Surely it would be better to give examples which are actually found in Latin. Kanjuzi (talk) 14:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that the example with homo quidam comes from the 8th-century English writer Alcuin. But it is rather a bizarre example to use. The other example with the subjunctive pervenerit comes from Cicero, but I think a better and simpler example could perhaps be found. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:40, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fortior puellarum 

message: Recently a Moroccan friend asked for some advice on how to learn Latin. I would have referred him to this article, but I realised that it would not be very helpful as it stood. I have therefore ventured to rewrite the section on verbs to make it more comprehensive and easier for beginners to follow. 
Part of the problem is that this section as it was before I changed it started as follows:
:"Latin verbs have numerous conjugated forms. Verbs have four moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative and infinitive), two voices (active and passive), two numbers (singular and plural) and three persons (first, second and third). They are conjugated in six main tenses (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect and future perfect). They have the subjunctive mood for the present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect. Infinitives and participles occur in the present, perfect and future tenses. As well, they have the imperative mood for present and future."
All this assumes that the reader already knows the meaning of phrases such as "conjugated forms", "indicative mood", "active voice", "1st person singular" and so on, which if they have never studied Latin is probably not the case. My idea is that it should be written in such a way that the technical terms are introduced one by one and each one explained as we come to it. I have tried to write it with that Moroccan friend in mind in such a way that he will be able to absorb the main ideas quickly and begin straightaway on Virgil. Readers may judge whether I have been successful. Kanjuzi (talk) 13:37, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verbs – reasons for rewriting the section. 

message: The statement in the introduction that colloquial Latin probably had Subject-Verb-Object word order contradicts one in the section on Word Order that it was probably Subject-Object-Verb. At any rate, it's rather speculative since there isn't enough direct evidence, and so it doesn't belong in the introduction. It is better if the two statements are put side by side so that readers can see that the matter isn't so simple. I have now done that. I also deleted the bit about the Latin Vulgate having mainly SVO word order; since that book is a translation, it may not reflect normal spoken Latin of the time. It would be useful to have a reference for the word order of conservative dialects like Sardinian; I don't think that is in Devine and Stephens. Kanjuzi (talk) 07:59, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Word order 

message: Whoever has added comparatives seems to be making up Latin as he goes along. Neither exterus nor novior exist in Latin authors, so they are strange examples to choose. It would be better to choose examples from a standard grammar such as Gildersleeve and Lodge. Kanjuzi (talk) 13:54, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Strange forms

message: I thought it best to replace the examples of case use with genuine Latin examples. The examples there up to now, such as festina, serve! are rather artificial and several of them don't correspond to anything which a reader might find in a real Latin book. So although they explain well enough the grammar of the simple Latin found in beginners' books, they don't prepare the reader for what is actually found in real authors. However, readers can judge for themselves. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:34, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of cases 

message: There's really nothing on negation in this entire article? How do you do standard negation? DavidJPeterson (talk) 23:41, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Negation? 

message: The example ductūrus est is translated to “he is going to lead”. Doesn’t it translate to “he is going to be led”? To my knowledge ducere is not a semi-deponent verb. Or am I getting anything wrong here? --Pogomeister (talk) 14:27, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The future participle (ducturus) is active; only the perfect participle (ductus) is (usually) passive. So it's actually quite correct. Easy to confuse though. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:18, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong translation of example in the introduction?