Fixi-ng
Latin
by Dr. Elizabeth Jones,
Christopher Newport University
This presentation involves the
use of drills on suffixes and infixes which represent the chief
morphological elements of Latin. These elements are built up
gradually as they are encountered and their various possibilities
are learned. As they become internalized they aid greatly in
increasing speed of comprehension and reading of Latin. This
technique has evolved over a number of years and consists, in
large part, of the application to Latin of the analytic method
used in teaching a course in word origins.
The suffixes and infixes are
organized under two headings: (1) nouns, adjectives, and pronouns
and (2) verbs. They are built up gradually as new forms are acquired
and are drilled regularly at the beginning of each class period.
Students are told to practice them at home as well.
The noun, adjective and pronoun
suffixes are the case endings, which are to be identified by
case and number. They are put on the board under numerical headings
that indicate the number of different possibilities they have,
and move from one column to another as additional possibilities
are encountered. For example, "-a" begins in Column
1 as Nominative Singular and shifts to Column 3 when the Nominative
and Accusative Plural Neuter are taught.
Verb suffixes are more varied
and include personal endings, infinitive and participle endings,
and imperatives. Verb infixes, on the other hand, consist primarily
of tense indicators for the Indicative and Subjunctive modes
plus those for the Future Participle, Gerund and Gerundive. The
chief difference from the noun set is that the verb elements
are identified by English equivalents (e.g., -nt- = -ing).
As the course proceeds, multiple
possibilities can be further refined by the instructor in conjunction
with vocabulary study and syntax (e.g., if a noun is a Second
Declension Neuter, "-um" can indicate Nominative or
Accusative Singular, and thus subject or object; if it is Second
Declension Masculine, it indicates only Accusative, and thus
object; if it is Third Declension, only Genitive Plural, and
thus = "of").
The following handouts show
the possibilities for both sets through the end of a 201 course
in college or the third year of high school. A few more possibilities
are added in 202 (fourth year of high school) for forms encountered
primarily in poetry. It is my purpose to further refine these
sets and to extend the system at the end of 202 to ease the transition
to reading Latin without the aid of macrons.
