Latin/Adjectives 2 Lesson 4

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This lesson we’ll continue studying Latin adjectives, including comparatives and superlatives that may be irregular or formed in an unusual way. We’ll also look at a few comparative and superlative adverbs, and have a “teaser” for a future lesson on participles.

New Grammar
There are a few irregular comparatives and superlatives this lesson; some of them have no positive forms. Latin adverbs are commonly formed from adjectives: for example, the 1st/2nd declension adjective
 * līber, lībera, līberum = free; libere = freely; or

the 3rd declension adjective
 * fortis, e = brave; fortiter = bravely.

Many other adverbs are formed in this way, although it is not an absolute rule. Adverbs can have comparative and superlative degrees as well: the comparative is the same as the neuter (acc.) s. of the comparative adjective:
 * lātior, lātius (adj.) = wider; latius (adv.) = more widely.

The superlative adverb is formed by dropping the –us of the superlative adjective and adding –ē:
 * facillimus, a, um = easiest; facillimē (adv.) = most easily.

We're not going to give a large number of sentences with these adverbs, but they do crop up in general usage and it helps to know the basic principle.

Finally, a teaser for a future lesson: did you know that many verbs can act as adjectives? It is a verbal adjective called a participle, and Latin literature is full of them. We’ll look at two types of participles in this lesson, the present active participle and the perfect passive participle. If you’ve followed along you have seen some present active participles already:
 * ēsuriēns, ēsurientis = hungering, hungry; sitiēns, sitientis = thirsting, thirsty.

If derived from a first conjugation verb the ending is –āns, -antis:
 * pugnāns, pugnantis = fighting;

if derived from 2nd-4th conjugation verbs the ending is –ēns, -entis. These present active participles are declined like 3rd declension adjectives.

Perfect passive participles are the 4th principal part of regular verbs. You have seen a few of these used as adjectives:
 * praeteritus = having been gone past; rēctus = having been made straight; salsus = having been salted.

You’ll notice that these have a passive voice sense, and they are declined like 1st/2nd declension adjectives. But since they are also verbs, they can express action and take verbal modifiers. Much of advanced Latin involves learning to navigate around extensive participial phrases and clause constructions; we’ll keep sentences simple today!

Practice
We hope this lesson has been clear and helpful for you. As always, if you have questions or comments, please leave a comment on the discuss page and we will try to respond. After studying adjectives, we will go back to verbs for a time for the next series of lessons. Bonam fortūnam et valēte!