The first five letters of the Greek alphabet show how much the Greek letters resembled the letters which we use.

Our word alphabet is derived from the names of the first two Greek letters. The first, second, and fifth of the letters given above appear in the English alphabet in the same form as in the Greek.

have developed into G and D.

The third and fourth

SUGGESTED DRILL

1. Where is Rome? 2. In what part of Italy was Greek spoken? 3. Name some modern nations occupying territory which was once part of the Roman Empire. 4. How did the early inhabitants of these regions become familiar with Latin? 5. What is the general name which is given to these modern languages which are derived from Latin? 6. Name some of the more important languages of this group. 7. Where is Roumania? 8. What Romance languages are extensively used in South America? 9. In what parts of North America are Romance languages spoken?. 10. Where is modern Greek spoken? 11. What are some of the ways in which the influence of the Greeks on the modern world is shown?

LESSON III

FORMS OF NOUNS AND PRONOUNS

THE CASE FORMS OF ENGLISH PRONOUNS

13. In English, as we have seen (page xxvii, section 18), we use a different form of a personal pronoun as subject from that which we use as object of a verb or preposition, and we use still another form to refer to a person as possessing something. Thus:

He talks (subject, he)

We love him (object, him)

I have his pencil (possessive, his)

CASE FORMS OF ENGLISH NOUNS

14. We use the same form of a noun for the subject and for the object, but we have a different form to denote the possessor. Thus, we say:

The boy talks (subject, boy)

We love the boy (object, boy)

I have the boy's pencil (possessive, boy's)

CASE FORMS OF LATIN NOUNS

15. In Latin, and in some other languages, nouns as well as pronouns have different forms to distinguish the subject, the object, and the possessor. Thus, the Latin noun for girl is puella when it is the subject, but puellam when it is the object, and puellae when it denotes the possessor.

DECLENSION

16. The name Declension is given to the process of grouping together these different forms of a noun or pronoun, and in giving these forms one is said to decline the word.

In Latin, nouns and pronouns have a larger number of forms than in English. Instead of three cases, there are five. In English, all prepositions have their objects in the accusative

(objective) case. In Latin, some prepositions take one case as their object, other prepositions a different case. The German language also has different cases thus used with prepositions

INFLECTIONAL AND ANALYTIC LANGUAGES

17. Sometimes a case form without any preposition is used in Latin to express an idea which in English would require a preposition with an object. A language which makes extensive use of case forms to show the relations of words in a sentence is called Inflectional. Latin, Greek, and German are inflectional languages. A language which commonly uses prepositions to show the relation of words and which has few case forms and few verb forms is called Analytic. English, French, Spanish, and Italian are analytic languages. Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, was an inflectional language.

THE LATIN CASES

18. The names of the Latin cases are as follows: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative. The nominative is the case of the subject or of the predicate noun, the genitive is the case of the possessor, and the accusative is the case of the direct object of a verb. The accusative is also used as the object of some prepositions.

The meanings and uses of the dative and ablative cases will be given later.

a. The English case which denotes the possessor is also used to denote certain other ideas which are somewhat like the idea of possession. Thus we may say the soldier's friend just as we may say the soldier's hat, although the first of these phrases does not really indicate possession. This is also true of the genitive case in Latin.

THE GENITIVE USED TO TRANSLATE A PHRASE

19. We may say the friend of the soldier as an expression of the same idea as the soldier's friend. Since the phrase of the soldier means the same as the soldier's, it will be expressed in Latin in

exactly the same way. That is, the word for soldier, in this phrase, will be put in the genitive case and no word for of will be used. If we are translating from Latin into English, the genitive of the word which means soldier may be translated either soldier's or of the soldier. We should use whichever of the two seemed to be the better English in the sentence in which we were employing it.

20. In the following sentences, tell what case would be required in Latin for the italicized words: 1. My brother lives in this city. 2. I have written a letter. 3. The soldier's gun was not loaded. 4. This was the home of my grandfather. 5. When will the train arrive? 6. Did you hear the music?

SUGGESTED DRILL

1. How many case forms do English nouns have in the singular? 2. How many in the plural? 3. How many case forms do English personal pronouns have in the singular, and how many in the plural? 4. What is meant by declension? 5. What is an inflectional language?. 6. What is an analytic language? 7. To which class does English belong? 8. Name the Latin cases. 9. How is the nominative used? 10. Give two uses of the accusative. 11. What is sometimes used in English as the equivalent of the case of the possessor? 12. In what two ways is the genitive translated?

LESSON IV

THE DATIVE: THE ABLATIVE WITH PREPOSITIONS

THE INDIRECT OBJECT

21. Verbs of giving, saying, and showing, and a few others, may have a dependent noun or pronoun in English to denote the person to whom one is said to give or say or show something. Such a word is called an Indirect Object.

I gave my brother a letter.

His father told him an interesting story,

In the above sentences the words brother and him are indirect objects.

THE FORM OF THE INDIRECT OBJECT IN LATIN AND IN ENGLISH

22. In English we use the same form of a pronoun for the direct and for the indirect objects.

We did not see them.

We gave them our tickets.

In the first of the preceding sentences, them is a direct object; in the second it is an indirect object. In Latin, the indirect object is put in the dative case, while the direct object, as has been seen, is put in the accusative.

A PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE USED INSTEAD OF AN INDIRECT OBJECT

23. In English we often use a phrase consisting of to and a noun or pronoun as the equivalent of the indirect object. We may say I gave him the book, or I gave the book to him. The phrase to him in the second sentence is equivalent to the indirect object him, in the first. Therefore to him in the second sentence will be translated into Latin by exactly the same case as that used to translate him in the first sentence, that is, the dative, and there will be no separate word for to.