Andalusia PAU Latin II key terms

Grammatical case: the form a Latin noun, pronoun, or adjective takes to show its function in the sentence (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, vocative).

Declension: one of the five patterned sets of endings that Latin nouns and adjectives follow. A word's genitive singular reveals which declension it belongs to.

Conjugation: the four regular patterns of endings used by Latin verbs, plus irregular verbs. The infinitive ending identifies the conjugation and the thematic vowel.

Morphosyntactic analysis: identifying each word's form (case, number, gender, person, tense, mood, voice) and explaining the syntactic function it performs in the clause.

Syntax: the rules governing how words combine into phrases and clauses, including agreement, government of cases, and word order, which in Latin is flexible and often emphatic.

Tense: the verbal category marking time reference and aspect, such as present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect.

Mood: the verbal category expressing the speaker's stance, chiefly indicative for statements, subjunctive for subordinate or unreal content, and imperative for commands.

Subjunctive mood: used in subordinate clauses, indirect questions, purpose and result clauses, and unreal conditions. Recognizing its triggers is essential for accurate translation.

Ablative absolute: a phrase made of a noun or pronoun in the ablative plus a participle or adjective, grammatically detached from the main clause and usually translated as a temporal, causal, or concessive clause.

Participle: a verbal adjective sharing tense and voice with a verb while agreeing with a noun in case, number, and gender. Latin has present, perfect, and future participles.

Indirect statement construction in which a verb of saying, thinking, or perceiving is followed by a subject in the accusative and an infinitive, translated with a 'that' clause in Spanish.

Infinitive: the non-finite verb form naming the action, used in indirect statement, as a complement, and as a noun. It keeps tense and voice but takes no person ending.

Indirect speech: reporting someone's words with subjunctive verbs and shifted pronouns, rather than quoting them directly. Latin uses it heavily in historical narrative.

Subordinate clause: a clause depending on a main clause, introduced by conjunctions such as ut, cum, quod, or si. Its verb is usually subjunctive in classical prose.

Vocabulary: the stock of Latin words a reader recognizes. PAU translation expects control of high-frequency prose vocabulary plus the specific terms of the set author.

Semantics: the study of meaning in words and sentences. In Latin commentary it covers shifts of sense by context, metaphor, and the value a word carries in a specific author.

Etymology: the origin and historical development of a word. Latin roots explain many Spanish words, and regular sound changes link pairs such as noctem and noche.

Learned borrowing: a Spanish word taken from Latin by written transmission rather than popular evolution, often preserving the Latin shape, as with frágil from fragilem beside the popular débil.

Heritage word: a Spanish word transmitted orally from spoken Latin and therefore reshaped by regular sound change, as with ojo from oculum or hecho from factum.

Word formation by compounding or derivation: building new Latin words with prefixes and suffixes, such as con- plus ferre, or adding -tor to a verb stem to name an agent.

Literary genre: a category such as epic, elegy, satire, historiography, oratory, or comedy, each with inherited conventions of metre, register, length, and typical subject matter.

Metre: the quantitative rhythm of Latin verse, built from long and short syllables. The dactylic hexameter suits epic and satire, while the elegiac couplet suits love elegy and epigram.

Author: a named writer whose work, style, and historical setting a candidate must be able to describe, including the genre practiced and its principal models.

Rhetoric: the art of persuasive speech, divided into invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. It shaped Roman education and the style of prose authors.

Speech or oration: a formal public address, especially a deliberative or judicial speech in the Roman forum. Its parts include exordium, narratio, argumentatio, and peroratio.

Historiography: the writing of history as a literary genre, cultivated by authors such as Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, who combined narrative, speeches, and moral judgment.

Stage play: a dramatic work for performance, whether tragedy or comedy. The term also appears in titles such as fabula praetexta for plays on Roman themes.

Comedy: a dramatic genre portraying ordinary citizens and domestic conflict, best known from Plautus and Terence, written in varied metres and spoken or sung by actors.

Rome: the city-state whose expansion from Italy to the Mediterranean world provides the political and cultural setting for nearly all surviving Latin literature.

The Roman Republic: the constitutional order with consuls, senate, and popular assemblies that lasted until the late first century BCE and supplies many texts with their political vocabulary.

The Senate: the advisory council of former magistrates that directed Roman policy, controlled finance, and gave weight to aristocratic opinion throughout the Republic and Empire.

Magistrate: an elected Roman official such as consul, praetor, or tribune, holding defined powers and usually serving a fixed annual term within a career of offices.

Command authority: the power held by senior Roman magistrates to give orders, levy troops, and enforce decisions, later also naming the territory and system of imperial rule.

Dutifulness: the Roman virtue of loyalty owed to gods, family, and homeland. It is a central value in Virgil's Aeneid, where Aeneas is repeatedly called pius.

The custom of the ancestors: the body of traditional norms and practices that Romans treated as a moral standard against which present conduct was measured and criticized.

Manly excellence: the Roman ideal of courage, self-control, and service to the community. In historiography it often frames the moral judgment of a character's actions.

Patron: a powerful Roman who protected clients in exchange for political support and daily attendance. The relationship, called clientela, structured social and literary life.