In Latin, adjectives and nouns agree in CASE, NUMBER, and GENDER.
Adjectives
Examine the sentence
Puella parva bonam Mariam amat, the little girl loves the good Mary.
In this sentence parva (little) and bonam (good) are not nouns, but are descriptive words expressing quality. Such words are called adjectives,2 and they are said to belong to the noun which they describe.
You can tell by its ending to which noun an adjective belongs. The ending of parva shows that it belongs to puella, and the ending of bonam that it belongs to Mariam. Words that belong together are said to agree, and the belonging-together is called agreement. Observe that the adjective and its noun agree in number and case.
Go on to next section
No comments:
Post a Comment
Put your initials or something here when you have finished the lesson.