Latin Phonology

1. Latin Phonology The Sounds of Latin 13 September 2004

2. Vowels • macron: line over a vowel, e.g., ā, indicating a long vowel sound • short mark: arc over a vowel, e.g., ă, indicating a short vowel sound • ă a as in ago • ā a as in father • ĕ e as in left • ē a as in late

3. Other Vowels • ĭ i as in hit • ī ee as screen • ŏ o as in often • ō o as in hope • ŭ u as in put • ū u as in jute

4. Diphthongs • Two vowels blended, e.g., ea in eat • ae y as in by • au ow as in now

5. Consonants • g always hard, as in go, never as in gem • i as a consonant, y as in yes • In the late Middle Ages, the letter j came to replace the consonantal function of i, such that Julius would be pronounced, “Yoo-lee-us” • r trilled (roll the tongue, a bit like the sound of a growling dog)

6. Other Consonants • s s as in sing, never the z sound as in is • u w as in wine, when used as a consonant after q and followed by a vowel, and sometimes after s or g • v w as in wine • When the characters u and v became distinguished, u functioned as a vowel, while v functioned as the consonant

7. Latin Grammar

8. Declensions • Groupings of nouns with similar endings • There are 5 declensions in Latin. (We will cover the first and second. We might start the third.)

9. Parts of a Noun • Base • Case Ending • See pp. 3-4

10. Case • Feature of a noun that helps to identify the part of the sentence in which the noun is functioning. • Cf. Eng. I and me. I is in the subjective case. I can only be a subject or predicate nominative (subjective complement). Me is in the objective case and can be a direct object, indirect object, etc.

11. Abbreviations • E.g.  exempli gratia, “for example” • I.e.  id est, “that is” • Etc.  et cetera, “and the other things”