We will study here the most significant features of the verbal derivatives which were used in Latin. Some of them - participles, the supine and the infinitive - were quite frequent in the language and served as productive forms. This is why even the shortest courses of Latin can't but mention the verbal noun constructions.
Verbal nouns included the following items of Latin:
1. Participles
2. Supine
3. Infinitive
4. Gerundive
5. Gerund
The supine is a special verbal form which was originally used in the compound verbal predicate with verbs of motion - e.g. in the sentence I came to listen the infinitive to listen is the original supine form by meaning (not by origin - there was no supine in Germanic). The supine is a noun and can be declined like a noun, that's way a great number of Latin supines became ordinary nouns in modern European languages, dropping the ending: English script from Latin scriptum (the supine from scribere 'to write'), French course from Latin cursum (supine from currere 'to run'). Other Indo-European languages which used such a form as the supine are, for example, Slavic, and some of them still preserve it, such as Slovene. In Latin the primary meaning of the supine was almost forgotten, and this part of speech began to play an auxiliary role, as a part of complex constructions.
The supine in Latin has got its own stem, one of the four principal forms of the Latin language. It is built using the infect stem with the suffix -t- (derived from the Proto-Indo-European *-tu-) and the same endings as the neuter nouns of the fourth declension. The supine can be only accusative or ablative singular, so its only endings are acc. -um and abl. -u. The peculiarities of the construction are the following:
the 1st and the 4th conjugation verbs have a simple -t-
(orna-t-um, audi-t-um)
the 2nd conjugation stems drop their final -e and pick
up -it- instead (mone-re > mon-it-um)
the 3rd conjugation supines are quite irregular (mitte-re > missum,
capere > captum). This is caused by numerous assimilations on the
border of the elements.
The pure supine is used in two kinds of constructions:
1. The accusative case is used after verbs of motion denoting the purpose
of action: venio ornatum 'I come to decorate'
2. The ablative supine is a noun which reminds the English gerund;
it is used after adjectives: difficile dictu est 'it is difficult
to say'.
But the supine stem is much more productive in constructing other parts
of speech - see below.
The participle in Latin is a collective term denoting several verbal nouns, all declining like adjectives but acting in the sentence as verbal forms. In Proto-Indo-European the number of participles was already not less than two, the active and the passive ones: later Indo-European languages developed even more of them. Latin has got three.
1. The present active participle is formed by the infect stem plus the suffix -nt-. In the nominative case this suffix merges with the ending creating -ns. Examples: ornans 'decorating', gen.sg. ornantis. This participle is declined as the third declension adjective, e.g.:
legentes homines 'reading people', scribentis consulis 'of the writing consul'.
2. The past passive participle in Latin is the same as in English written, done, given. It is bulit of the supine stem and the inflections of the 2nd noun declension. Examples: ornat-us 'decorated', scriptus 'written', auditi 'listened, heard' (nom.pl.). The past participle is used when forming the passive forms of the Perfect tenses, with the auxiliary verb esse: ornatus sum 'I was decorated', is lectus est 'it has been read'.
3. The future active participle is rather rare in colloquial speech,
but still worth learning: the supine stem is given the suffix -ur-
and the 2nd declension noun endings: ornaturus 'which is
going to decorate'.
The infinitive has several varieties too:
1. The present active one, which was already described above: ornare, mittere, audire. This infinitive, as linguists believe, derived from the Indo-European verbal noun of the s-stems in the locative case.
2. The present passive infinitive is made using the suffix -rí added to the infect stem: ornari 'to be being decorated'. The 3rd conjugation's suffix is -í: mitti 'to be being sent'.
3. The past active infinitive: take the perfect stem and add -isse: ornavisse 'to decorate in the past'.
4. The past passive one: the past participle plus esse: ornatus esse 'to have been decorated'.
5. The future active infinitive: the future participle plus esse: ornaturus esse 'to decorate in the future'
6. The future passive infinitive: the nominative supine + iri: ornatum iri 'to be decorated in the future'.
I understand your feelings. I'm also tired to list these forms, especially
bearing in mind that all of them were not used too often in Latin. But
in case you meet them in the text you will know what they mean. And, besides,
you now realize what a complicated structure is a classical Indo-European
tongue.
The gerundive is a verbal adjective which is built by the infect stem, the suffix -nd- / -end- and the 1-2 declension adjective endings. Examples: orna-nd-us, mone-nd-us, mitt-end-us, capi-end-us, audi-end-us. It has two general meanings - an attribute with the noun in indirect cases, and an adjective of obligation:
laboris ferendi causa 'for the sake of the work being
done'
epistulá accipiendá laetor 'I am pleased
by the received letter'
locum ad castra ponenda deligere 'to choose the place
for the camp to be bulit'
memoria exercenda est 'one should train his memory'
ager est colendus 'a field should be cultivated'
liber mihi legendus est 'the book should be read by me'
(the acting person is used in the dative case)
The gerund is a relative form built by the infect stem and the suffix -nd-. It can be declined in several cases in the singular number:
G legendí
D legendó
Ac legendum
Ab legendó
Examples:
ars dicendí 'art of speaking'
locum pugnandó cepit 'secured a place for fighting'
§ 10. Auxiliary pars of speech.
Sometimes a pair of conjunctions or prepositions can give us more linguistic information than the research of nouns. For example, in ancient Celtic language the lexicon of inscriptions consists primarily of personal names or placenames which are composed using the same scheme: a prepositions plus a noun or two nouns. This is where preverbs and prepositions are really of great importance for historical linguistic studies.
Like the majority of Indo-European languages, Latin preferred prepositions to postpositions. The latter part of speech is habitual mainly for Asian languages like Dravidian, Altaic and Uralic. Those of Indo-European tongues which were long influenced by Asian languages also acquired the system of postpositive particles and conjunctions: they are noticeable already in Sanskrit, and very frequent in modern Indic and Iranian languages.
The original Indo-European structure, however, means the wide use of prepositions which operated with fixed case forms of the following nouns. In Latin, there were prepositions with accusative and with ablative (the latter one, remember, is a merger of instrumental, locative and ablative cases).
1. Prepositions with the accusative case
ad - to, towards, at
adversus < *arvorsus - toward, against,
facing
ante - before (from the loc. case form *anti)
apud < *apur - at, near, nearby
circum - around
contra - against
extra - outside (from the abl. case form *extrád)
in < *en - in, into (denotes direction)
inter - between, among (from *en + the
dual suffix *-ter)
ob < *op, *opi - because of, as a result of
per - through, via (from the present verb form *peró
'I transfer')
post - after, behind
propter - because of; next to
sub < *s-upo - under (denotes direction)
super < *s-uper - up (denotes direction)
trans - through, across
Most of them are of common Indo-European origin.
2. Prepositions with the ablative case
a, ab, abs < *apo - from (abs before
t; a before other stop consonants)
absque - outside, without
cum < quom - with
de - from, out of, about
e, ex < *ek-se - from, out of
in - in, into (denotes location)
prae - before, in front of
pro - in favour of, for, instead
sine < *swe-ne - without
sub - under (denotes location)
super - above (denotes location)
Mind that in, sub, and super ard used with
both cases, but with different meanings:
in Romam venio 'I come to Rome'
fui multa copia hominum in Roma 'There were a lot of
people in Rome'
Neptunus sub aqua habitat 'Neptune lives under the water'
Librum sub mensam jecit 'He threw the book under the
desk'
There is a small number of fixed ablative noun forms which play the
role of postpositions with nouns in the genitive case. They include causa
'because of' and gratia 'for the sake of'. The abbreviation
"e.g." very popular in English is transcribed from Latin as exempli
gratia 'for example'.
The list of basic conjunctions of the Latin language is given below:
et - and (from Indo-European *eti
'more, also')
ac / atque < *adque - and, also, than
aut - or
vel - or (from the imperative form vel
'wish')
sive < *seive - or
sed - but, however
tamen - but, still
neque..., neque, nec... nec... - neither.. nor..
cum < quom - when
dum - while, until
etsi - though
ne - in order not to
nisi - unless
postquam - after
quando - when
qui - who
si < sei - if
ubi - where
ubi primum - as soon as
ut / uti < *utei - in order to (it is used in conditional
clauses: Edimus ut vivamus non vivimus ut edamus 'we eat
for living, not live for eating')
The most widespread particles are the following:
an - an interrogative particle 'whether?'. Its cognates
are Slavic ali, Baltic ar, Greek ara,
Celtic an.
-ne - may be translated as English isn't it? but
is sticked to the previous verb or noun.
autem - an emphatic particle, analogue of Russian zhe
-que - and (e.g. senatus populus-que 'the
Senate and the people'). This is a common Indo-European one, found also
in Greek, Celtic, Anatolian, Tocharic, Indic and other groups
I think that's all for the Latin morphology. If you still have some time and strength to dedicate to Latin studies, look through the Syntax.
(To be continued.)