Latin 112/113: Introduction to the Basic Elements of Latin-English Grammar:
Parts of Speech

For further discussion see the "Glossary of English-Latin Grammar" on pp. xvii-xxiii of the Reading Latin grammar.

1. Noun
   • Alludes to a person, place, thing, action, concept, etc.
   • Common noun: "boy," "farm," "dignity"
   • Proper noun: "Saskatoon," "Mr. Dressup"

2. Pronoun
   • Stands in place of a noun.
   • Examples: "I," "he," "she," "it," "us," "you," "they"
     • Relative pronoun: "I know the man who killed Caesar."
     • Interrogative pronoun: "Who killed Caesar?"

3. Verb
   • Indicates an action or a state.
   • Transitive: "You read the book." "We kissed them."
     • Active: "I hit him."
     • Passive: "I was hit by him."
   • Intransitive: "I slept." "You ran." "They sang."
   • Copulative:
     • "I am president."
     • "We became arrogant."
       • Subject [in the examples above: "I," "We"]
       • Complement [in the examples above: "president," "arrogant"]

4. Adjective
   • Describes ("modifies") a noun.
   • Examples: "happy," "tall," "silly," "fast"
   • Attributive — gives an attribute of a noun which is assumed to be true; serves to specify something about the noun [FN 1]:
     • "The green cow ate the grass." [i.e., the green cow as opposed to the brown or yellow cow]
   • Predicative — actively asserts something about a noun [FN 1]:
     • "The cow was green!"
     • "The cow sank, exhausted, to the ground."
   • [Interrogative adjective: "What books have you read?" "What kind of fruit is that?"]

5. Adverb
   • Answers the question, "How?"
   • Modifying a verb: "He ate quickly." "She slept soundly."
   • Modifying an adjective: "They were very smart."
   • Modifying another adverb: "He ate very quickly."

6. Preposition
   • Clarifies the relationship of a noun to the rest of the sentence: "He slept in the bed."
   • Usually stands before its noun: hence the name (prae ["before/in front"] + pono ["to put/place"]).
   • Examples: "in," "on," "at," "under"

7. Conjunction
   • Joins together two clauses [FN 2], phrases [FN 3], or words.
   • Coordinating:
     • "I love him and he loves me." [Copulative]
     • "I hate him but he loves me." [Adversative]
   • Subordinating:
     • "When Cicero saw his friend Atticus, he laughed." [Temporal]
     • "Because I ate well, I slept soundly." [Causal]
     • "Although I hate him, he loves me." [Concessive]
     • "If I see her, I will tell her." [Conditional]

8. Interjection
   • An exclamation.
   • "Oh!" "Hey!" "Oops!"

Notes

[FN 1] See the notes on the "Use of the Adjective" for unit 1B. [Return to text]

[FN 2] Clause: any statement that contains a subject and a verb.

• Independent clause: a clause that can stand on its own as a complete sentence — e.g., "He didn't seem happy."

• Dependent clause: a clause that cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence — e.g., "Although he had just won the lottery."

• Thus the sentence, "Although he had just won the lottery, he didn't seem happy," contains both a dependent clause ("Although he had just won the lottery") and an independent or main clause ("he didn't seem happy"). [Return to text]

[FN 3] Phrase: a group of words in a sentence that naturally belong together but that do not contain a subject and/or a verb and convey no complete meaning of their own — e.g., "in the back yard" [a prepositional phrase] [Return to text]

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