Noun/Adjective Agreement
Noun/adjective agreements are vital for anyone learning Latin. Because both Latin nouns and adjectives decline, you must make sure they a agree. Adjectives HAVE to agree with the noun they modify. Each noun/adjective has to agree on 3 things, case, number and gender, that is to say it has to be the same case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative), number (singular or plural), and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter)
1st/2nd Declension Adjectives
reconized by the principal parts always ending is -us,-a,-ume.g. laetus, laeta, laetum- happy
Simple Rule: Case and Number shouldn't be a problem to figure out [e.g. Nom. Sg.] but sometimes remembering which declension to use can be kind of hard
Remember:
Masc. - [2nd Declension] Nom sg. -us
Fem. [1st Declension] Nom. Sg -a
Neuter- [2nd Declension] Nom. Sg -um
Examples:
Puer (Laetus, -a um)
Puer is Masc. Nom. Sg so my adjective must also be Masc. Nom. Sg.
Thus, I use the 2nd declension Masc. Nom. Sg. -us
Puer laetus.
Puellam (Romanus, -a, -um)
Puellam is Feminine Accusative Singular, thus my adjective must be too
Puellam Romanam
Lucem (magnus,-a, -um)
Lucem is a 3rd Declension word, its accusative singular also. from the principal parts. we know its feminine.
Adjectives may never leave their declension!
We simply make it agree
We need a Feminine Accusative Sg. form of Magnus.
Magnam lucem
3rd Declension adjectives
P. parts end in 'is,-is, -e'. They follow the 3rd Declension adjective form. More on this later.
P. parts end in 'is,-is, -e'. They follow the 3rd Declension adjective form. More on this later.