Saarland Abitur Latin key terms

A participial phrase in the ablative that stands apart from the main clause and expresses circumstance, time, cause, or concession; German renders it with a subordinate clause or prepositional phrase.

A participle agreeing with a noun in the main clause and forming an attributive or adverbial phrase; students must decide whether to translate it as relative clause or as adverbial clause.

An infinitive construction in which the subject stands in the accusative; it serves as object of verbs of saying, thinking, perceiving, and feeling, and is rendered in German by a dass-clause.

Passive counterpart of the AcI: the subject of the governing verb is also subject of a passive infinitive, as in dicitur venisse; German often renders it with 'soll' plus infinitive.

The rule governing tense choice in subordinate subjunctive clauses: primary sequence after main-clause present or future tenses, historical sequence after past tenses, controlling whether present or imperfect subjunctive appears.

Use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses of purpose, result, indirect question, and indirect command; the conjunction and the governing verb determine which subjunctive tense is required.

Subjunctive form expressing an unreal condition or wish; present subjunctive refers to the present contrary to fact, imperfect to the past, and pluperfect to the unfulfilled past.

Grammatical mood of a verb; Latin distinguishes indicative for factual statements, subjunctive for dependent, potential, or unreal statements, and imperative for commands.

Verbal noun with only two forms: the supine on -um after verbs of motion expressing purpose, and the supine on -u after adjectives such as facilis; both derive from the perfect participle stem.

Verbal adjective on -ndus expressing necessity or obligation, as in Carthago delenda est; it agrees with its noun and is rendered in German with 'müssen' or 'zu' plus infinitive.

Declinable verbal noun in the neuter singular that supplies oblique cases for the infinitive as noun, as in ars dicendi; it names the activity itself, not the person obliged.

Verbs passive in form but active in meaning, such as loqui, sequi, and uti; they have no active forms, and their participles and gerundives must be translated actively.

Voice of a verb; Latin distinguishes active and passive, with deponent verbs formally passive but semantically active, and the passive of intransitive verbs used impersonally.

Case expressing separation, instrument, means, manner, cause, and comparison; its many functions require the reader to infer meaning from context and prepositions.

Grammatical case; Latin has six: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative, with vestigial locative forms; case endings mark syntactic function.

Verb stem supplying perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect forms; it must be learned separately from the present stem and often shows reduplication, vowel change, or -s- suffix.

The four principal parts of a Latin verb: first person present, infinitive, first person perfect, and supine; they determine all tense and voice forms and must be memorized.

Tense; Latin has six tenses built on present and perfect stems, and their meaning in subordinate clauses is regulated by sequence of tenses.

Verbal adjective; Latin has present active, perfect passive, and future active participles, each with its own stem and translation pattern, central to participial constructions.

Verbal noun form used to complete verbs and to build the AcI; Latin has present, perfect, and future infinitives in active and passive, each with distinct time reference.

Subordinate clause introduced by a conjunction or relative pronoun; its verb usually stands in the subjunctive, and its type depends on the introductory word.

Subordinate clause introduced by a relative pronoun; in Latin it takes the subjunctive when it expresses purpose, cause, or is part of indirect speech.

Indirect speech; subordinate clauses take the subjunctive, pronouns shift to third person, and the main statement is expressed by an AcI or by a subjunctive clause.

Voice in which the subject receives the action; Latin forms it with passive endings and, in perfect tenses, with the perfect participle plus forms of esse.

Case marking the direct object, the subject of an AcI, and the object of certain prepositions; it also expresses extent of space and time.

Study of verse rhythm; in the Oberstufe candidates must scan hexameter and elegiac couplets, marking long and short syllables and recognizing caesurae and diaeresis.

Six-foot dactylic verse line of epic and didactic poetry; the fifth foot is usually a dactyl, the sixth a spondee, and the caesura after the third foot is common.

Couplet of one hexameter followed by one pentameter, used in elegy and epigram; the pentameter has a fixed pattern with a strong caesura in the middle.

Art of persuasive speech; candidates should identify the three genera dicendi, the parts of a speech, and common figures such as anaphora, chiasmus, and tricolon.

Rhetorical figures used for stylistic analysis, including alliteration, asyndeton, polysyndeton, hyperbaton, and apostrophe; students must name and explain their effect.

Recurring argumentative or thematic commonplace in ancient literature, such as laudatio temporis acti or the locus amoenus; recognizing topoi supports interpretation across genres.

Deliberate reference of one text to another through quotation, allusion, or imitation; in Latin literature it links works such as Vergil's Aeneid and Homeric epic.

Later reception and transformation of ancient texts in European literature and art; the Oberstufe requires awareness of how Latin works shaped later traditions.

Intellectual movement reviving classical Latin and Greek texts from the Renaissance onward; its educational ideals shaped the German Gymnasium and the Latin curriculum.

Educational ideal associated with classical languages, emphasizing formal training, historical awareness, and engagement with European cultural tradition; a standard topic in German curriculum debates.

Methodical analysis of a Latin text combining translation, structure, stylistic observation, and historical context to argue a reading supported by the text itself.

Scholarly reconstruction of an ancient text from manuscripts; candidates should know terms such as codex, stemma, and conjecture and how editors choose readings.

Transmission of ancient texts through manuscript copies; knowledge of how texts survived, and where gaps exist, matters for assessing reliability of a given passage.

Figurative expression transferring meaning from one domain to another; in Latin poetry it often draws on nature, warfare, or seafaring and must be interpreted in context.