Lectio duodevicesima

Notes

1. Scisne, from scio (is, ire), to know. For the part. -ne, cf. L 3, N 3.

2. Quid: the interrogative adjective-pronoun has the following forms in the singular:

   masculine feminine neuter

   subject quis quae quid : who/what?

   direct object quem quam quid : whom/what?

   possessive phrase cujus cujus cujus : whose?

   indirect object cui cui cui : to whom/what?

   adverbial phrase quo quá quo : by whom/what?

   It resembles oddly enough the relative adjective-pronoun which differs from it only by the forms qui and quod instead of quis and quid.

   As their names indicate, these words can be either pronouns as the relative pronoun qui in phrase 5, or adjectives:

   quae res?, what thing? (subject)

   quam rem?, what thing? (object)

   quá ré?, by what thing? (why, how) (adverbial phrase)

3. Nescio = non scio, I do not know; scio, I know.

4. Invenio (is, ire), to find (active voice); invenior (iris, iri), be found (passive voice).

5. Sim, sis, sit: that I be, that you be, that it be (subj. of esse). Futurus (a, um), which will be, is the FUTURE participle of this same verb.

6. Is… qui, that which (when that replaces a masculine noun); ea… quae, that which (when that refers to a feminine noun); id… quod, that which (when that refers to a neuter noun). These words almost always come in pairs, but their order is often reversed; e.g.: is est sciurus, qui ascendit in arborem.

7. Interesset: another subjunctive! Interesse is a compound of the verb esse, a verb which we must begin knowing: Pres. ind.: sum, es, etc.; pres. subj.: sim (vid. sup. N 5); impf. subj.: essem, esses, esset, etc. Intersit, of P 1, is therefore the 3rd pers. sg. of the pres. subj. of interesse. Let us not yet search for the rules of use of the subjunctive, but content ourselves with gradually gaining familiarity with its forms.

   Let you start to see the differences between the prepositions:

   a (ab in front of a vowel) which indicates distance, difference, or introduces the agent of a passive verb, if it represents a person (the one who actually performs the action);

   e (ex in front of a vowel) which indicates the exit;

   de, which indicates the source, the descent and means also: about. E.g.: «De bello Gallico», about the Gallic War, is the title of «The War of the Gauls», by Julius Caesar.

N.B. — For the 2nd wave: do not translate descends in P 8 by descendit, which would not be very correct for this figurative sense.

To end this lesson, let us see the different forms which the words pater bonus (the good father) can take depending on their role in the sentence:

Singular Plural

#1 subject pater bonus patres boni

#2 direct object patrem bonum patres bonos

#3 possessive phrase patris boni patrum bonorum

#4 indirect object patri bono patribus bonis

#5 adverbial phrase patre bono patribus bonis

Do not try to learn the table above by heart: simply know that the different words do not follow the same rules of change according to case, and that we have not yet seen all the tables of possible variations. Very fortunately, although there are several, as a whole they all have a quite remarkable family resemblance. Patience, all that will be cleared up!

Exercitatio