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the writer, of a large and important educational institution, numbering 270 pupils, together with other professional engagements, will probably cause some imperfections to attach to the work; but it is hoped that those for whose use it is specially designed will see in it, if no more, the one merit of making a step in a right direction, and of, at all events, seeking to aid the great cause of popular education.

GREENWICH, May, 1854.

T. G.

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LATIN GRAMMAR.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

1. ALL the words of the Latin language are subdivided, for the sake of convenience, into eight heads, called classes of words, or parts of speech.

2. These are noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.

3. Of these the four first admit of inflexion; the adverb, in some instances, admits of comparison; and the three last named are not modified in any form whatever.

4. The inflexion of a word is the change, generally of termination, it undergoes in order to the expression of a difference of idea.

5. This change, when the noun, pronoun, or adjective is referred to, is usually called declension; when the verb, conjugation. On the Noun, i.e. the name for any being or thing which may serve as the subject of discourse.

6. To nouns belong gender, number, person, and case. 7. The genders of nouns are three-masculine, feminine, and

neuter.

8. Some nouns, the names of animals, which may be masculine or feminine, are called common, as parens, a parent.

Note. The doubtful gender has no existence in reality, and only means that a particular word is treated by one writer as masculine, by another as feminine.

9. The number of nouns is twofold, singular and plural; the former is used when one object is denoted, the latter when two or

more.

10. The persons of nouns are three-first, second, and third. A noun standing for the speaker is said to be of the first, and for the

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person spoken to, of the second person; all other nouns, however used, are said to belong to the third person.

11. The case of a noun, pronoun, or adjective is the form it takes in its declension.

12. There are six cases in the Latin language-nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, and ablative.

Note. The participle is sometimes regarded as a distinct class of words, but, practically considered as to its functions and declension, belongs to the class adjective.

13. The nouns of the Latin language, as regards their declension, are subdivided into five classes, distinguished by the termination of their genitive singular.

FIRST DECLENSION.

The genitive singular ends in a.

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Note 1. The nouns of this declension, with few exceptions, are

of the feminine gender.

Note 2. Filia, nata, anima, socia, serva, and asina make the dative and ablative plural to end in is or abus; and dea, mula, equa, and liberta terminate in these cases in abus only.

SECOND DECLENSION.

The genitive singular ends in i,

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Note 1. When the nominative singular of this declension ends in us, the vocative will end in e: as, nominative, dominus; vocative, domine. Deus, however, makes deus in the vocative.

Note 2. Proper names, that is, the names of particular individuals, ending in ius, form the vocative by omitting the us: as, Virgilius; vocative, Virgili. Filius and genius follow this rule.

in the formation of their vocative.

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