NCEA Level 2 Latin cheat sheet

Nouns: five declensions identified by genitive singular ending (-ae, -ī, -is, -ūs, -eī); the genitive stem plus case ending gives every oblique form.

Cases and functions: nominative (subject, complement), genitive (possession, partitive, objective), dative (indirect object, possession with esse, agent with passive gerundive), accusative (direct object, motion towards, duration, extent), ablative (means, manner, agent with ā/ab, separation, comparison, absolute), vocative (address).

Verb principal parts: present, infinitive, perfect, supine (e.g. amō, amāre, amāvī, amātum); the perfect stem gives active perfect tenses, the supine stem gives perfect participles and the passive-perfect system.

Four conjugations: -āre, -ēre, -ere, -īre; the present infinitive ending identifies the conjugation, and -iō verbs of the third conjugation (capere) pattern like the fourth in the present.

Subjunctive uses: purpose (ut/ne + imperfect or present), result (ut/ut nōn after tam, ita, tantus), indirect command (ut/ne), indirect question (interrogative word), cum-clauses (cum + imperfect/pluperfect subjunctive = circumstances), conditionals (sī + present/imperfect subjunctive for future-less-vivid and contrary-to-fact).

Sequence of tenses: primary sequence (present, future, future perfect main verb) takes present or perfect subjunctive; historic sequence (imperfect, perfect, pluperfect main verb) takes imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive.

Participles: present active (-ns, -ntis) = simultaneous action; perfect passive (-tus, -a, -um) = prior action; future active (-tūrus) = intended action; future passive (gerundive) = obligation. Ablative absolute = noun/pronoun + participle in the ablative, grammatically independent of the main clause.

Indirect statement uses accusative + infinitive after verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, perceiving; reflexive sē refers to the subject of the introductory verb.

Common irregular verbs to recognise: esse (sum, esse, fuī), posse, ferre, īre, velle, nōlle, mālle; their forms recur in set texts and unseen translation.

Epic: Vergil's Aeneid (12 books, dactylic hexameter) fuses Homeric models with Roman foundation myth; Aeneas' pietas contrasts with Juno's furor; Ennius' Annales is the earlier Latin epic model.

Didactic epic: Lucretius' Dē Rērum Nātūrā expounds Epicurean atomism in hexameters; Vergil's Georgics adapts Hesiodic didactic to Italian agriculture and Octavianic ideology.

Elegy: Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid write in elegiac couplets (hexameter + pentameter); the servitium amōris and militia amōris are stock motifs; Ovid's Amores, Ars Amātōria and Metamorphoses (hexameters) differ in tone and genre.

Lyric and iambic: Horace's Odes use Alcaic, Sapphic and Asclepiad metres; his Satires and Epistles are hexameter sermo; Catullus' polymetrics include hendecasyllables and Sapphics.

Oratory and rhetoric: Cicero's speeches (In Catilinam, In Verrem, Prō Milōne) follow rhetorical structure - exordium, narrātiō, argūmentātiō, perorātiō; rhetorical figures include anaphora, tricolon, praeteritio, rhetorical question.

Historiography: Sallust (Bellum Catilinae, Bellum Iugurthinum) writes with moralising prologues; Livy's Ab Urbe Conditā covers Rome from foundation; Tacitus' Annales and Histōriae use pointed brevity and innuendo.

Comedy: Plautus and Terence adapt Greek New Comedy; stock characters include the senex, adulescens amātor, servus callidus, meretrix; Plautus favours song, slapstick and Plautine compounds, Terence smoother diction.

Verse technique: dactylic hexameter = six feet of dactyls/spondees, final foot usually spondee; elegiac couplet = hexameter followed by pentameter; synizesis, elision and caesura affect scansion.

Literary devices to identify: simile, ekphrasis, apostrophe, hyperbaton, golden line, chiasmus, allusion (imitatio), and the recusatio (poet's refusal of epic themes).

Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan) descend from Vulgar Latin; the Classical written standard differs from the spoken register that produced them.

Sound change patterns: Latin -ti- before a vowel often becomes -ci-/-z- in Romance (nātiō > Italian nazione, French nation); initial consonantal changes and loss of final -m are typical.

English vocabulary: roughly half of English words are Latinate, many via Norman French; Latin roots and prefixes (portāre, dūcere, scrībere, -tio, -mentum) recur in technical and academic registers.

Latin cases survive fossilised in English pronouns (I/me, who/whom) and in expressions such as 'by means of', while Romance languages retain a two-case system only in pronouns (French il/lui, Spanish yo/mí).

Latin-derived phrases in English: et cetera, per capita, ad hoc, quid pro quo, status quo, vice versa, curriculum vitae, prima facie, de facto, post mortem.

Scientific and legal nomenclature: Linnaean binomials are Latinised (Canis lupus); legal Latin includes habeas corpus, mens rea, actus reus, stare decisis, bona fide.

Mottoes and inscriptions: e.g. 'SPQR', 'E pluribus unum', 'Veni, vidi, vici'; school and university mottoes often use Latin, showing the language's continuing prestige function.

Etymological awareness: knowing Latin roots aids decoding of English derivatives (e.g. dīcere > dictate, diction, verdict; ferre > transfer, refer, fertile).