Morphological and syntactic analysis of the translated text
What the analysis question asks
Domain 2 tests parsing and syntactic labelling of words or phrases taken from the passage you have just translated. You may be asked for case, number and gender; tense, mood and voice; the function of a noun in its clause; the type of subordinate clause; or the name of a construction. Answers must combine morphology and syntax: 'ablative singular feminine, ablative of means' is stronger than 'ablative'. In the Basque paper, answers may be written in Basque or Spanish; keep the Latin term and add the equivalent, e.g. 'ablativo absoluto (ablative absolute)'.
Core rules
- For every noun or adjective, give case, number, gender and declension; then state its function (subject, direct object, genitive of possession, dative of indirect object, ablative of separation/means/manner/absolute).
- For every verb, give person, number, tense, mood, voice, and whether it is finite or non-finite; name deponent and semi-deponent verbs.
- For pronouns, identify the type (personal, reflexive, demonstrative, relative) and its antecedent.
- Name constructions precisely: accusative and infinitive, ablative absolute, passive periphrastic, gerund, gerundive, supine, indirect question, cum clause, purpose/result clause.
- Use both Latin and target-language terminology where the paper expects it.
Worked example
Sentence: Urbe capta, milites praedam diviserunt.
- Urbe capta: ablative singular feminine (urbs, urbis) + perfect passive participle (capio, capere, cepi, captum); ablative absolute, 'the city having been captured / after the city was captured'.
- milites: nominative plural masculine of miles, militis; subject of diviserunt.
- praedam: accusative singular feminine of praeda, -ae; direct object.
- diviserunt: third person plural perfect active indicative of divido, dividere, divisi, divisum.
Traps
- Calling a participle a finite verb.
- Confusing dative and ablative plurals (both -is in the third declension).
- Labelling a cum clause as 'with' rather than temporal, causal or concessive.
- Calling a gerundive a gerund; the gerundive agrees with a noun, the gerund is a verbal noun.
- Forgetting that deponent verbs have passive forms but active meaning.
- Giving the case but not the syntactic function.