Latin/Relative and Indefinite Pronouns Lesson 2

Salvēte omnēs! Welcome back to Latin for Wikiversity. Here you can peruse a new lesson in Latin, in a simple format. If you would like to catch up, you can find a directory of lessons, a classified vocabulary list, and Memrise courses at the links on the right.

In the last lesson we began the complex process of making sense out of relative pronouns, which are used in relative clauses. A good site for learning the forms of the pronouns is here: relative pronouns. We started with relative pronouns (and review of interrogative pronouns and adjectives) in the nominative and accusative cases. This lesson, we’ll work on the genitive, dative, and ablative cases.

In relative clauses, the relative pronoun refers to a previously expressed antecedent. The gender and number of the pronoun must agree with the antecedent, but the case of the relative pronoun depends on how it is used within its own clause; for example:
 * Puellās quārum pater herī mortuus est videō. = I see the girls whose father died yesterday.
 * Puellās = acc. pl. fem, this is the direct object of the main clause and the antecedent of quārum . Quārum = gen. pl. fem., agreeing with its antecedent in gender and number, but because it expresses possession it is genitive in the relative clause.

As we did in the last lesson, we will highlight the relative clauses in the sentences so you can study them. If you are confused, it may help to make a stand-alone sentence out of the relative clause by substituting the antecedent in its proper usage: “The girls’ father (father of the girls) died yesterday.” To translate into Latin, you would need the gen. pl.: puellārum and this is your clue to find the proper pronoun form.

Notes: we are using the medieval invention, the letter j, when the Latin uses the letter i in a consonantal way (e.g., cujus/cuius). It helps at least some of us. But if you prefer not to use the letter j, we will try to give the i version as an alternative in the Memrise course. We realize it is probably the more common usage, worldwide.

Practice
Next lesson will deal with some of the tricky indefinite pronouns. Valēte!