Latin for Beginners · Lesson XLIII · Part 8: The third declension completed
43. Third declension: i-stem nouns
Goal: Your child can tell which third-declension nouns are i-stems and decline hostis, urbs and animal correctly.
You'll need
- The book: the lesson pages, plus the special vocabulary at the back of the book
- A notebook and pencil
- Index cards for new words
What's in the book
The rules for recognizing i-stems (§ 241) and how their endings differ (§ 242), the paradigms of caedēs, hostis, urbs, cliēns (§ 243) and īnsigne, animal, calcar (§ 244), then eleven Latin and five English exercises. Vocabulary on page 292.
The lesson, step by step
Warm up
Your child declines one consonant-stem noun, such as rēx, and one neuter, such as flūmen.
The new idea
Some third-declension nouns have a hidden i in their stem. It shows up in a few places only. For masculine and feminine nouns: genitive plural -ium, and accusative plural -īs or -ēs. For neuters: ablative singular -ī, and an i in every plural form.
How to spot them (§ 241): nouns in -is or -ēs with the same number of syllables in the nominative and genitive, nouns in -ns and -rs, one-syllable nouns ending in -s or -x after a consonant, and neuters in -e, -al, -ar.
Say the forms aloud
Read hostis aloud together:
hostis, hostis, hostī, hostem, hoste
hostēs, hostium, hostibus, hostīs, -ēs, hostibus
Then the neuter animal:
animal, animālis, animālī, animal, animālī
animālia, animālium, animālibus, animālia, animālibus
Vocabulary
Page 292 at the back. Some of the words:
cīvis, cīvis (-ium), m. and f., citizen (civic)
hostis, hostis (-ium), m. and f., enemy in war (hostile)
mare, maris (-ium), n., sea (marine)
nāvis, nāvis (-ium), f., ship (naval)
urbs, urbis (-ium), f., city (suburb)
The (-ium) is the book's signal that the noun is an i-stem.
Latin to English
Translate the eleven sentences aloud. Two of them:
Urbs quam vidētis est Rōma.
Alia animālia terram, alia mare amant.
English to Latin
Write the five English sentences in Latin. Check each genitive plural: is the noun an i-stem (-ium) or not (-um)?
Wrap-up
Ask: what are the i-stem signs in the endings? Memorize hostis and animal, and the i-stem rules in § 241.
Afterwards
This lesson usually takes two days: forms and words the first day, the exercises the second.
Tip
Keep a list titled 'i-stems' on a card. Each time a new noun shows (-ium) in a vocabulary, add it.
Answers to the book's problems
Some numbered items have two sentences (a question and its answer). 1. What city do we see? The city which you see is Rome. 2. The Roman citizens had fortified their city with high towers and long walls. 3. The winds were keeping the warships from approaching the territory of the enemy. 4. The general received from his retainers spurs of gold and other decorations. 5. The Roman soldiers waged fierce wars with the enemy and overcame them with great slaughter. 6. Some animals love the land, others the sea. 7. The warships which were carrying help to the general were destroyed by fire by the enemy. 8. On that sea we saw many birds which had flown far from land. 9. Did you not see the warships of the enemy and the fires by which our city was being laid waste? Certainly, but we saw neither the slaughter of the citizens nor the flight of the retainers. 10. The birds and other animals, when they saw the fire, quickly began to seek safety in flight. 11. The judge was not standing in the ranks of the foot soldiers, was he? No, the judge was among the horsemen, and his horse wore a beautiful decoration.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.