Basque PAU Latin II key terms

Basque: ablatibo absolutua. A subordinate construction made of a noun or pronoun in the ablative plus a participle or adjective, grammatically detached from the main clause and translated with a temporal, causal, concessive or conditional clause.

Basque: ablatiboa. The Latin case expressing separation, instrument, means, manner, agent with passive verbs, comparison, and location; in the set texts it frequently appears in absolute constructions and as complement of prepositions such as ab, cum, in, de.

Basque: partizipio perfektu pasiboa. The fourth principal part of a verb, formed on the supine stem and declined like an adjective; it supplies passive meaning in perfect tenses and forms the participle of ablative absolute constructions.

Basque: subjuntiboa. The Latin mood used in subordinate clauses of purpose, result, indirect question, cum-clauses and reported speech, and in main clauses for exhortation or unreal condition; identifying its trigger is a standard analysis task.

Basque: denboren segida. The rule by which the tense of a subjunctive verb in a subordinate clause depends on whether the main verb marks primary time (present, future) or secondary time (past, perfect); misjudging it is a common translation error.

Basque: zehar-estiloa, estilo zeharkakoa. Reported speech in which statements become accusative-and-infinitive clauses, questions take the subjunctive, and commands take the subjunctive; frequent in historiography such as Caesar and Sallust and in Livy's speeches.

Basque: akusatiboarekin infinitiboa. A construction in which a verb of saying, thinking, perceiving or feeling governs a subject in the accusative and an infinitive as its complement; the standard way of rendering indirect statements in Latin prose.

Basque: infinitiboa. The non-finite verb form in -re (present active), -ri (present passive), -sse (perfect active) and -tum iri (future passive); it carries tense relative to the main verb and supplies the predicate of accusative-and-infinitive clauses.

Basque: aditz deponentea. A verb with passive forms but active meaning, such as sequi, loqui, arbitrari, profiteri; its participles may still be passive in sense, which affects translation of ablative absolutes.

Basque: preposizioa. An invariable word governing a case, chiefly accusative for motion or extent and ablative for place, means, accompaniment and separation; in poetry it may be separated from its noun by hyperbaton or anastrophe.

Basque: hiperbaton. The deliberate separation of words that belong together, such as an adjective from its noun or a preposition from its object; characteristic of Latin verse word order and a key obstacle in translation.

Basque: hexametroa. The dactylic line of six feet used by Lucretius, Virgil and Ovid in epic and didactic verse; the fifth foot is normally a dactyl and the sixth a spondee or trochee, with caesura usually in the third foot.

Basque: pentametroa. The second line of the elegiac couplet, built of two dactylic halves with a fixed caesura and a final syllable; used by Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid and Martial for elegy and epigram.

Basque: zesura. A word boundary falling inside a metrical foot, most often after the first syllable of the third dactyl in the hexameter; its position guides phrasing and therefore the punctuation of a translation.

Basque: elisioa. The suppression of a final vowel or of final -m before a following vowel or h, so that the syllable is not counted in the metre; recognizing it prevents false quantities when scanning a line.

Basque: elegia. A poetic genre written in elegiac couplets, treating love, mourning, exile or erotic instruction; Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid are the set authors, and Ovid's Tristia show its use for personal lament.

Basque: epigrama. A short poem, originally an inscription, brought to literary perfection by Martial in hendecasyllables or elegiac couplets; its sharp final point and colloquial vocabulary are typical of the genre.

Basque: satira. A Roman genre in hexameters devoted to moral criticism of contemporary life, represented by Horace's Sermones and Epistulae and by Juvenal; it is distinct from Greek iambic invective and from epigram.

Basque: historiografia. The prose genre of Caesar's Commentarii, Sallust's monographs and Livy's Ab Urbe Condita; it combines narrative, speeches in indirect discourse and ethnographical or moral digressions.

Basque: komentarioa. A memoir-like narrative of events written in the third person and in plain style, as in Caesar's Gallic and Civil Wars; it was intended as source material for future historians rather than formal history.

Basque: erretorika. The art of persuasive speech studied in the schools and applied in Cicero's orations; its parts (inventio, dispositio, elocutio) and figures such as anaphora and praeteritio shape the set prose passages.

Basque: periodoa. A long Ciceronian sentence built of balanced clauses (cola) closed by a cadence; its structure must be mapped before translation, since the main verb often stands at the very end.

Basque: testu-transmisioa. The process by which a classical text reached us through manuscripts copied in scriptoria; its study uses stemmata, archetypes and families of codices to establish what the author wrote.

Basque: kodexen stemma. A genealogical diagram showing how surviving manuscripts descend from lost exemplars; it guides editors in choosing readings and in discarding errors introduced by copyists.

Basque: aparatu kritikoa. The block of notes below a critical text recording variant readings, conjectures, deletions and the manuscripts supporting each; reading it lets a candidate judge disputed passages.

Basque: kodexa. A bound book of folded leaves that replaced the papyrus roll from the fourth century; medieval codices, often written in Carolingian minuscule, are the direct witnesses of Latin literature.

Basque: palinpsestoa. A manuscript whose original writing was scraped away so the parchment could be reused; ultraviolet or chemical reading has recovered otherwise lost classical works, notably Cicero's De Re Publica.

Basque: etimologia. The study of a word's origin and development; in this exam it explains how Latin roots such as dic-, duc-, port- and fac- produce Spanish and Basque-derived or Romance vocabulary.

Basque: latin erroa. The invariant part of a Latin word that carries its core meaning and reappears in modern languages, as in portare giving Spanish portar, portátil and puerto; recognizing roots aids guessing unknown vocabulary.

Basque: kultismoa. A word borrowed into a Romance language directly from written Latin rather than through popular evolution, as Spanish frágil from fragilis beside the popular frágil/frágil forms; it often preserves the Latin meaning more closely.

Basque: polisemia. The plurality of meanings a single Latin word can carry, such as ratio (reason, account, method) or res (thing, affair, state); choosing the right sense depends on context and author.

Basque: testuingurua. The surrounding words and situation that determine which sense of a polysemous word or which construction is intended; the first step of any translation is establishing it.

Basque: hitz figuratua, metafora. A word used beyond its literal sense, as in flos aetatis for youth or mare for a crowd; recognizing the image prevents absurd literal renderings in poetry.

Basque: topos, leku komuna. A recurring motif inherited from Greek and Latin literature, such as the locus amoenus, the golden age or the ubi sunt; identifying it supports literary commentary.

Basque: locus amoenus. A conventional pleasant landscape of shade, water, grass and birds used in pastoral and epic, as in Virgil's Eclogues and the description of Carthage's harbour; a standard element of literary commentary.

Basque: urrezko aroa. The mythical first age of innocence and abundance described by Hesiod and Virgil (Eclogue 4, Georgics 1) and later used by Ovid; it serves as a moral contrast with the present.

Basque: patroia. A wealthy Roman who gave financial and legal support to a client in exchange for political and social services; patronage shaped the careers of poets such as Horace, Virgil and Martial.

Basque: mezenasa. A wealthy patron of the arts, named after Gaius Maecenas, adviser to Augustus and protector of Virgil and Horace; the term is used in commentary on the relationship between poets and power.

Basque: bezeroa, klientea. A free person attached to a patronus by inherited or contracted obligation, offering political support and daily attendance in return for protection and money; central to Roman social history in the set texts.