LEARNING LA TIN ACCIDENCE AJ'\1} VOCABULARY WITH THE AID OF LINGUISTICS AJ'\1} PIDLOLOGY B.E. Lewis, University of Port Elizabeth 1. DESPERATE REMEDIES With the virtual extinction of Latin as a school subject an unfortunate reality, teachers need to try to devise new methods of making the subject interesting, and, if possible, to reduce the large amount of rote learning it demands. A valid reason for Latin's bad press is its notorious number of irregular forms. If a teacher can, by the Socratic method, ~uide pupils into explaining why apparent anomalies are in fact "regular irregularities", I then the more curious pupils will regard Latin as an intellectual challenge. The material suggested here correlates with the aims stated in the draft core syllabus laid down by the Department of Education and Culture for Latin Higher grade, Standard 6 and beyond.2 Firstly I think we need to drive home to pupils that Latin was a living language and that it shows the same signs of being a spoken language as the English or Afrikaans of here and now. Pupils would of course not be expected to remember the linguistic facts; once they have been given, they may be forgotten, but they could be useful to jog the memory in case of a lapse. The material is presented here systematically, but it is left to the teacher's discretion to sense what his class can grasp, and he will be guided by the order of presentation in the text book he is using. 2. SUGGESTIONS FOR LESSON ONE Though Latin for today is no longer in vogue in the 1990s, I still find the introduction on Latin's position in relation to modern languages3 a good starting-point for the first lesson. In order to make known his empathy with the pupil, the teacher could consider reading the following extract from Jude the obscure, which tells about the ambition of a young man to learn Latin and Greek and eventually to study at Oxford. "Jude had meditated much and curiously on the probable sort of process that was involved in turning the expressions of one language into another. He concluded that the grammar of the required tongue would contain, primarily, a rule, prescription, or clue of the nature I owe this humorous paradox to the late Mr. Milne, who taught me my first Greek at Rhodes. With his lively method of tuition he used to quiz the class to explain how, for instance, genous, the genitive singular of genos, was in fact no exception to the rule of the third declension gen. sg. ending in -os. 2 See 1.1.1 (a) "gain an insight into the structure of language" and (g) "improve their working vocabulary in a multilingual situation by attention to questions of etymology". Latin for today Parr I, pp.xv-xx explains how the Romance languages came into being (through Norman French, and through borrowings which retain their original forms, and which have undergone changes). While one of the cultural aims of the school syllabus is to impart "some knowledge of the derivatives of the Lingua Romana • ( 1.1.3 (c)), this paper suggests giving pupils a glimpse of a much earlier stage. See also Kennedy par. 1. 134 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ of a secret cipher, which once known, would enable him, by merely applying it, to change at will all words of his own speech into those of the foreign one. "4 Little did Hardy himself know that, although there was not a secret trick to acqumng grammar, a new field of scholarship was being opened up in the 19th century, which could help the beginner to learn vocabulary and which shows the ways in which words change their for~s. This was because thousands of years ago one language was spoken in most parts of Europe and India. In the same way as Afrikaans is descended from Dutch, so Latin, Greek, the early forms of Dutch, German, Anglo-Saxon and the languages spoken in much of eastern Europe and the Indian subcontinent arose from this very ancient language. One can help to bridge the gap between Latin and English or Afrikaans by mentioning that they share some characteristics due to their common descent from the same family of languages. In the course of time languages tend to become simpler - which is why we find ancient languages so complicated. Some simple illustrations of the process by which consonants changed between Latin and Dutch/Afrikaans and English are as follows: maTer =5 moTHer= moeDer;fraTer =broTHer= broeDer; aGer = aCre = aKKer; eGo = eK; Porcus = Vark; Pater= Vader= Father; Flos = Blossom; Frater = Brother = Broeder. (See Section 4 below for more complete information.) In order to stress the spoken nature of Latin, the teacher could try a practical demonstration. The class could be asked to experiment, perhaps in pairs, and then say whether they thought scriptum or scribtum was the right form. The answer would create the realisation that organs of speech act in the same way, whether the speakers be Romans two thousand years ago or South Africans today, and that the ear and speech-organs are a fairly reliable guide to deciding which is the correct form, even though the pupil knows nothing of a language. This is certain to build confidence. It needs to be impressed on the pupil that sounds and words work in systems, and that languages are not conglomerations of isolated elements.6 Another exercise to make the pupils aware of how sounds behave, is to let them put the finger over the larynx and feel the difference between the voiced consonants b, d, g, and the voiceless p, t, c. They may also discover empirically which other consonants are voiced and voiceless, and which are labials, plosives, palatals, dentals, nasals, liquids, sibilants7 and semivowels.s 4 Thomas Hardy, Jude the obscure, cap. 4. The symbol/=/ is used to designate "is connected with", or "is related to", but not "is identical with". 6 This suits the linguistic aims of the syllabus, viz. 1.1.1 (a) and (b). 7 See Kennedy par. 6. 8 Two other points need clarification: (a) While /i/ and lui are vowels, both long and short, they sometimes merge as it were into the consonants lyl and lwl, as can be seen in the pronunciation of see-Ying and do-Wing, as opposed to see and do. It is for this reason that i and u are called semi vowels. In Latin, no doubt due to an awareness of the ilj relationship, there was no difference in script between the vowel and the consonant i as in in and iam. The English coriander and Afrikaans koUander illustrate that this ambiguity between the vowel and consonant forms exists even today. Where Latin has the vowel u English has consonant w, e.g. vidUa = widoW, sUdor = sWeat. (b) The so-called liquid consonants, land r, are sometimes used interchangeably, e.g. there is no r sound in Chinese and no l in Japanese, and there is also the difference between the English coRiatuler and Afrikaans koLjcmder. 135 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ So far little Latin will have been taught on Day One, but a new perspective on the way in which languages work, will have been opened up. The rest of this article contains the factual material from which the adventurous teacher may like to draw. 9 It will require time to make transparencies to illustrate the facts, and it is left to the teacher to decide whether the pupil's sensitivity to language is worth his effort. If he has reservations about the proposals, he may at least try drawing a diagram of sum (as given below), to see if pupils remember the forms more easily. 3. SOME RULES IN LANGUAGE THAT WE APPLY UNSELF CONSCIOUSLY 3.1 One of the commonest features in languages is the rule of assimilation. In English we say iMpossible, iLliterate but iNdistinct, though the prefix is in-. Then adjusts to a lip sound when the next sound is also made with the lips. This rule accounts for changes in combinations with various consonants. 3.2 The opposite tendency of assimilation is dissimilation. As the word suggests, the change brings about difference instead of similarity. For instance Latin has puRpuRa, maRmoR, but English has puRpLe, maRbLe. 3.3 Vowels change in the course of time. The country conquered by the southern German tribe, the Angles, was once called Angle/and. Then the pronunciation changed to Engle/and, and in fact the country is still called Enge/and in Afrikaans. The modern spelling England gives us a frozen image, so to speak, of the pronunciation at an earlier stage. 3.4 In English and Afrikaans we find variation of the vowel sounds between different parts of speech, between singulars and plurals and in various stems of the verb, e.g. sOng, but sing, sAng, sUng; knOw, knEw; bEAr, bOre; sEE, sAw; gEt, gOt; mAn, mEn; mOUse, mice; fOx, vixen;Jo Afrikaans sk!Et, skUt, skOOt; rUik, rEUk, and the Afrikaans sterk verlede deelwoord used as an adjective as in gekOse, opgewOnde, geskrEwe, and aanbevO/e as opposed to gek!Es, opwEn, geskrYfand aanbevEEl. 3.5 A consonant!! may be inserted to make the change from one sound to another easier to pronounce, e.g. HeNRy, but HeNDRik; ThoMPSon for ThoM-Son; Latin caMeRa and Afrikaans kaMeR, but English chaMBeR; Latin teNeR but English teNDeR; huMiLis, but English huMBLe. 3.6 Consonants also change, as the s in the English was, which becomes r when it stands between vowels, giving rise to were. This phenomenon occurs in other languages too. 3. 7 A vowel in English may have a certain quality in a specific position in the word, but when it occurs in a different syllable, it may change. To put it differently, where the accent falls in an English word sometimes determines the sound of the vowel. (Most The information presented here (which is partly covered by Kennedy parr.I0-23) is a selection of topics studied in courses in comparative philology and the history of Latin. Unfortunately there are few universities world wide which teach the subject, and it is missing from the syllabus of Method of Latin. The facts are naturally oversimplified, but I think we can afford to take this risk, as we are not training philologists. Ideally the material could be treated in a one-day workshop for teachers. 10 Vixen is from another dialect;fuen would correspond more closely to the masculine. II Its technical term is a glide consonant. 136 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ - -------~----·-·~-· _______________! :..~ often the stress occurs on the vowel in the first syllable, and the vowel in the syllable which does not begin the word becomes a nondescript sort of sound.) We say man but w6man, pfous but fmpious, p6tent but fmp tent, jury but fnjury, human but humanity. 0 3. 8 There is a theory of "economy of effort", which is a polite way of saying that a sound becomes indistinct to save the speaker from the exertion of pronouncing all the components of a word with accuracy. Whatever the true reason, this trend is found in many languages. Examples which illustrate the loss of both consonants and whole syllables are: English fo'c'sle for forecastle, ma'am for madam, modern English king for Old English cyning (cf. Afrikaans koning); American English plenny for plenty, gonna for going to; Afrikaans hanne for hande, soggens for des oggends. 4. THE IE (Indo-European) CO~'NECTION (or LEARNING VOCABULARY THROUGH SOUND LAWS) Some hidden links between Latin and English and Afrikaans via the conversion of consonants from Latin to their mother tongue were presented as fare for the first lesson. Many other illustrations may be given. Sounds change along certain lines, and though linguists speak of sound laws, they should not be regarded as operating constantly like the laws of nature. Somebody once quipped, "Language is psychological, not logical." Other examples which may be quoted are as follows: * While the so-called New Pronunciation is more honoured in the breach than in the observance because it is perceived as being pedantic, I would advocate that the class be taught that /v/ in Latin was pronounced in Latin as the English /w/, e.g. Video (meaning "know by seeing") = English Wit = Afrikaans Weer; oVis = eWe; noVus = neW; VidUa = WidoW; sUavis = sWeet [the verb persuadeo means "to make it sweet for (hence the dative of the person) another"]; sUdor = sWeat * (G)nosco = Know; Genu = Knee; Genus, Gens = Kin (the Janata party in India is the People's party) * To the list ofjrater, jlos, add Fero = Bear * Hanser = Gander, Goose = Afrikaans Gans; veHo = waGon; Homo = (bruide)Gom (literally bride-man) * To the list of pater, porcus, add Pes/Pedis = Foot; Piscis Fish; Pluo = Flow; Porcus = Vark * To aGer, eGo, add iuGum =yoKe = AfrikaansjuK * Cent-um = Hund-red * morTuus = murDer; cenTum = hunDred; suDor = sweaT; the Latin present participial ending -nT = Afrikaans -nD, e.g. lopend * Tu = lliou; paTer = fallier * oNs =Nos * The accus. sing ending -m is found also in hiM, whoM and Afrikaans hoM. 137 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ 5. USING THESE RULES TO FACILITATE LEARNING FORMS 5.1 Assimilation * ad- adapts (or a~similates) to give aFjero, aCcipio, aPpel/o, aTtraho; * cum- changes in front of various consonants giving rise to coMpono, coLligo, coRripio; * scriB-tum changes to scriP-tum as it is awkward to pronounce a voiced consonant immediately before a voiceless consonant; * suM-Mus < 12 suP-Mus as in suP-remus; ma.x-imus < maG-simus as in maG-nus; * pueR-La (-Ia is the diminutive suffix added to puer) > pueL-La. 5.2 Dissimilation This feature operates in particular where there are llr combinations. It causes the change from the Latin caeLuLeus (caeLum + an adjectival ending) to caeRuLeus, to avoid two I sounds in consecutive syllables; similarly regaLis, but popuLaRis, pueRiLis but pue/LaRis, cf. maRmoR but English maRbLe, and in meRiDies for meDi-Dies (meaning "the middle of the day"), to avoid two d sounds in consecutive syllables. 5.3 Vowel Alternation 5.3.1 It is most often the e/o sounds that are involved, e.g. sEquor sOcius; tEgo tOga; pEndeo pOndus; vElle vOlo; mEntio mOneo; vEster vOs, but the alternation occurs also in fldo jOEdus; Eo Tre Yr. 5.3.2 However the variation in spelling between epistU/a and epistO/a is due to a change of pronunciation in Latin itself, and is not an example of vowel alternation in the Indo-European parent speech. It also is to be found. in the second declension nouns, e.g. servUs but servO, servOs, servOrum. 5.4 Vowel changes as a result of position in the word It has been shown that the vowel in the second syllable often changes as a result of the position of the accent. In early Latin the accent fell on the first syllable, but its position changed later.13 When dealing with compound verbs, both when using a lexicon and to relate it to the simplex, it is generally helpful to have a rough guide as to how the vowel, which was in the first syllable, will change. Some examples are: cAEdo but occldo cApio but inclpio rApio but corrlpio 12 Conventionally the sign I< I denotes "comes from"; similarly !>I denotes "becomes". 13 Originally the Latin accent fell on the first syllable, but the position later changed to the second last or third-last. 138 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ fAcilis but dijjlcilis fActus but perfEct us clAUsus but inc/Usus The difference between pArio and pepEri (for pepAri) is also due to the position of the vowel in the word.I4 5.5 Hidden connections obscured by changes in pronunciation mUnio, mUrus but mOEnia pUnio but pOEna PUnicus but POEni 5.6 Shortened forms Sometimes Latin has shorter forms of words, such as nil for nihil, petii for petivi. In these examples a consonant between two identical vowels is eliminated, and the two vowels combine. This illustrates the tendency towards "economy of effort" .IS This tendency may be taken a step further. The starting-point is forgotten and even a whole syllable can be eliminated, e.g. nosse and delerunt (for novisse and deleverunt).I6 6. SYSTEMATISING THE DECLENSIONS Despite their numerous apparent differences, there are several points of similarity between the declensions. With the exception of some third declension nouns, all declensions have a vowel before the ending; all the accusative singulars end in -m; the ablative singulars end in a long vowel (with the obvious exception of the third declension consonant stems); and the masculine and feminine accusative plurals end in a long vowel + s. 6.1 The third declension and its apparent oddities The third declension contains nouns with consonant stems (which make up the vast majority), and a few nouns with i-stems. Because the declension of the two types was originally so similar, they influenced one another. Pupils have already met several facts which explain apparent difficulties in the third declension, viz. * ·There are nouns which have no additional ending for the nom. sg., e.g. puer pueri. 14 Not only do vowels change as they occur in a later syllable, but sometimes the vowel disappears altogether, as the following examples show: rertuli for re-reruli (the perf. being te-tuli); similarly repperi for repeperi (re + pepari). 15 See 3.8. 16 See cyning in 3.8. 139 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ * Nouns in -er in the o-declension are of two kinds, viz. those which keep the -e of the nom. sg. throughout (e.g. puer puen} and those which lose the -e (e.g. ager agri). * An o may change with an e, e.g. servO servE. * Sometimes an s changes to an r when it stands between vowels, e.g. iuS but iniuRia;11 honoR (nom.) was originally spelt honoS, but the later form of the nom. was introduced to make it look more like the stem. * Combinations of consonants cause changes that disguise the original spelling, as was seen in scrip-tum. 6.2 The basic pattern of the third declension SINGULAR PLURAL Nom./Voc. (m./f.) -is, -es, -s OR stem -es without an additional (Neuters have no ending -a, -ia special ending) Ace. (neuters have -eml-im -es, -is same ending as nom.) -a, -ia Gen. -is -um, -ium Dat. -i -ibus Abl. -e, -i (in -i-stems) -ibus 6.3 Notes to the third declension -o 6.3.1 In the abl. sg. the ending -i belongs to -i -stems and corresponds with -ii and of the a- and o-stem declensions. 6.3.2 In the ace. pl. the -es is the nearest equivalent of -as and -'6s in the vowel-stem declensions. 6.3.4 The original +stem declension survives in the -is of the nom. sing., the -7 of the abl. sg., -ia of the nom./acc. neut. pl. and the -ium of the gen. pl. (Contrast the consonant-stem endings -e, -a and -um of the abl. sg., nom./acc. neut. pl. and gen. pl. respectively.) This is the true explanation for the different gen. plural endings. The interpretation of increasing and non-increasing nouns1S has no basis in fact. 17 See 3.6. 18 See Kennedy, parr. 44-49, and Latin for today II, rules 16-18. 140 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ ··---------------------------- - 6.4 Some examples of third declension nouns 6.4.1 Some nouns have a nom. sg. consisting of the stem only, e.g. consul consulis, animal anima/is, mulier mulieris, victor victoris. 6.4.2 The vowel in the last syllable of the stem may differ from the vowel in the last syllable of the nom. sg., e.g. crimEn criminis, homO homlnis. 6.4.3 The nom. sg. in -x stands for g + s or c + s, e.g. leX leGis, duX duCis. 6.4.4 Nouns whose stems end in -d or -t lose that letter before the -s of the nom., e.g. custoS custoDis, vinuS vinuTis, mileS miliTis, genS genTis (for custods, vinuts, milets, gents). 6.4.5 Some nouns lose the -n in the nom. sg., e.g. ratio ratioNis, condicio condicioNis, homo homiNis, sanguis sanguiNis; but words like nomeN nomiNis and crimeN crimiNis are regular. 6.4.6 Nouns ending in -er are of two types, viz. those which lose the e in the genitive sing., e.g. pater parris, mater matris, and those which keep the -e, e.g. mulier mulieris, career carceris. 6.4.7 A noun ending in -s may change to -r in the stem, e.g. iuS iuRis, aeS aeRis, tempuS tempoRis, honoS honoRis. 6.4.8 The vowels -o and -u appear in different cases, e.g. corpUs corpOris, tempUs tempOris (for corpOs and temp0s).19 6.4.9 The -u (which was originally an -o) changes to an e, e.g. opUs opEris, genUs genEris. 6.4.10 Some -i stem words do not show that they have an-i in the nom. sg., e.g. animal, but regular animall animalla animallum; mare, but regular marl marla marlum. 6.4.11 Some important nouns show a mixture of -i stem and consonant-stem endings: civis civelcivi civium aedes aede aedium finis fine finium host is hoste hostium ignis igneligni ignium iuvenis iuvene iuvenum gens genre gentium pars2o pane panium urbs2o urbe ur..b ium 19 See 5.3.2. 20 For parris and urbls, just as thee was lost from retetuli and repeperi. 141 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ 7. LEARNING THE COMPARATIVES The English comparative suffix -er is the same in origin as the Latin -ior. Both come from an ending in -s, with the change tor. This explains why the neuter has the ending -ius. 7 .1.1 There are several suffixes which indicate the Latin comparative, viz. * -iorl-ius, e.g. durior durius, maior ( < mag-ior as in mag-nus) maius; * -ter (cf. English better), e.g. posterus, noster (ours rather than anyone else's); * -erior, e.g. posterior, superior, inferior 7 .1.2 The suffixes for the superlative are: * -mus, e.g. primus, minimus, imus, infimus, extremus, postremus * -timus, e.g. optimus * -simus, e.g. maximus ( < mag-simus),facillimus ( <jacil-simus), celerrimus ( < celersimus) where assimilation is at work. * -issimus, e.g. audacissimus, paratissimus. 8. MAKING MOLE-HILLS OUT OF VERBAL MOUNTAINS 8.1 Principal Parts Certain changes in the perfect and supine stems may be explained as due to assimilation, e.g. the first consonant becomes voiceless in front of the voiceless tors, e.g. scriPTum for scriB + Tum; laPSus for laB + Sus; reCTum for reG + Tum, taCTum for taG + Tum (cf. tanGo), jraCFum for jraG + Ttum (cf. jra(n)Go). Somewhat harder are reliCTum for reliQU + Tum, and loCUTus but loQUor. 8.2 Ways of fonning the. perfect stem 8.2.1 The first consonant of the stem is repeated and joined to the beginning of the word by a vowel, most often an -e, e.g. cecrdi cGdo peperi pario cecTdi caedo fefelli • jallo dedi do tetigi tango cucurri curro 142 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/ 8.2.2 The suffix-sis added to the present stem, e.g. dixi = dic-si pres. dico rexi = reg-si rego scripsi = scrib-si scribo sumpsi = sum-si21 sumo 8.2.3 The suffix -u/v- is added to the present stem, e.g. am a-vi mon-ui audi-vi consul-ui 8.2.4 A short vowel in the pres. stem > a long vowel in the perf. stem, e.g. /egi (perf.) /ego (pres.) legi (perf.) /~go sedi s"Meo emi ~mo (emptum=em+tum)11 veni veu m•o vTdi vrdeo fugi fi/gio 8.2.5 The short vowel of the pres. stem changes to another vowel and this becomes a long vowel in the perf. stem, -e, e.g. fici facio egi av go cepi cav pw• fregi fra(n)go 8.2.6 Certain verbs have exactly the same stem for both pres. and perf. stems, e.g. verto veni volvo volvi 8.4 Ways of forming the present stem There may be instances of the present stem appearing to differ from the perfect, but this is because the present stem itself has a suffix or a nasal sound inserted, e.g. 8.3.1 -sco = begin, as in cresco = grow, nosco = get to know 21 Sum-si and sum-tum, as well as em-tum, acquire p as a means of making the pronunciation easier. (See note on 17wmpson in 3.5.) 22 These are the glide sounds one finds in Thompson, humble, etc. 143 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/