NCEA Level 2 Latin flashcards

31 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Genitive singular diagnostic

The genitive singular ending identifies a noun's declension: -ae (1st), -ī (2nd), -is (3rd), -ūs (4th), -eī (5th). The genitive stem plus case ending gives all other forms.

Ablative absolute

A noun or pronoun plus a participle (or adjective) in the ablative, grammatically separate from the main clause, expressing circumstance, cause, or time: 'hīs rēbus cognitīs' = 'when these things had been learned'.

Purpose clause

A subordinate clause expressing purpose, introduced by ut (positive) or nē (negative), with the verb in the present or imperfect subjunctive depending on sequence of tenses.

Result clause

Introduced by ut (or ut nōn for negative) after signal words such as tam, ita, tantus, or sīc, with the verb in the subjunctive. It expresses a consequence, not a purpose.

Sequence of tenses

Primary sequence (main verb present, future, future perfect) takes present or perfect subjunctive; historic sequence (main verb imperfect, perfect, pluperfect) takes imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive.

Indirect statement

After verbs of saying, thinking, or perceiving, Latin uses accusative plus infinitive rather than a 'that' clause. Reflexive sē refers back to the subject of the introductory verb.

Indirect question

A question reported after verbs of asking or knowing, introduced by an interrogative word (quis, quid, cūr, ubi) and taking the subjunctive; tense follows sequence of tenses.

Gerundive of obligation

A future passive participle (-ndus, -a, -um) expressing necessity or duty, often with a form of esse: 'Carthāgō dēlenda est' = 'Carthage must be destroyed'.

Deponent verbs

Verbs passive in form but active in meaning, e.g. sequor, sequī, secūtus sum ('follow'). Their participles often carry active force, and they have no regular active forms.

Dactylic hexameter

The epic metre: six feet of dactyls (-◡◡) or spondees (--), with the fifth foot usually a dactyl and the sixth a spondee. Used by Vergil, Lucretius, Ovid, Horace's Satires.

Elegiac couplet

A hexameter line followed by a pentameter, used by Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid for love elegy and epigram. The pentameter's second half is a repeated hemiepes.

Aeneid and pietas

Vergil's twelve-book epic in hexameters traces Aeneas from Troy to Italy. His defining virtue is pietas - duty to gods, family, and destiny - set against Juno's furor.

Ekphrasis

A sustained literary description of a work of art or visual object, such as the shield of Aeneas in Aeneid 8, often carrying symbolic or prophetic meaning for the narrative.

Golden line

A hexameter pattern where two adjectives and two nouns frame a central verb, usually adjective–adjective–verb–noun–noun, a stylistic feature of Vergilian and Ovidian verse.

Ciceronian oratory structure

A speech typically moves through exordium (introduction), narrātiō (statement of facts), argūmentātiō (proof), and perorātiō (conclusion), deploying figures such as anaphora, tricolon, and praeteritio.

Horatian lyric metres

Horace's Odes use Greek lyric metres, notably Alcaic and Sapphic stanzas and Asclepiads. His Satires and Epistles instead use dactylic hexameter in a conversational sermo style.

Roman comedy stock types

Plautus and Terence adapt Greek New Comedy with recurring characters: the senex (old man), adulescens amātor (young lover), servus callidus (clever slave), and meretrix (courtesan).

Sallustian historiography

Sallust's Bellum Catilinae and Bellum Iugurthinum open with moralising prologues, use archaising brevity and antithesis, and diagnose Rome's decline through ambitio and avāritia.

Recusatio

A poetic refusal motif in which the poet declines to write grand epic, claiming insufficient talent or a Callimachean preference for slender, refined genres such as elegy or lyric.

Vulgar Latin

The spoken, non-literary register of Latin from which the Romance languages descend. It differs from Classical written Latin in vocabulary, pronunciation, and simplified syntax.

Romance language family

Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Catalan descend from Vulgar Latin. Their shared vocabulary and grammar reflect regional developments of spoken Latin after the Empire.

Latin -ti- to Romance

Latin words in -tiō, -tiōnis often yield -ci- or -z- in Romance: nātiō becomes Italian nazione and French nation, showing regular palatalisation of -ti- before a vowel.

Latinate English vocabulary

About half of English vocabulary is Latin-derived, much entering via Norman French. Roots such as port-, dūc-, scrīb-, and suffixes -tion, -ment recur in academic and technical registers.

Fossilised English case

English preserves Latin-style case distinctions only in pronouns: I/me, he/him, who/whom. Romance languages keep a two-case pronoun system, e.g. French il/lui and Spanish yo/mí.

Common Latin loan phrases

Everyday English uses Latin phrases such as et cetera, per capita, ad hoc, quid pro quo, status quo, vice versa, curriculum vitae, prima facie, de facto, and post mortem.

Linnaean binomial nomenclature

Scientific names of species use Latinised binomials, genus capitalised and species lower case, e.g. Canis lupus, Homo sapiens. The system was formalised by Linnaeus in the eighteenth century.

Legal Latin terms

English law retains Latin terms including habeas corpus, mens rea, actus reus, stare decisis, bona fide, and prima facie, reflecting the language's historical role in legal record.

Latin mottoes

Institutions and states use Latin mottoes for prestige and brevity, e.g. E pluribus unum, Veni vidi vici, and SPQR, showing Latin's continuing symbolic function in modern public life.

Etymology of 'dictate'

From Latin dictāre, frequentative of dīcere ('say'). The same root yields diction, dictionary, verdict, and predict, illustrating how one Latin root generates many English derivatives.

Norman French transmission

After 1066, Norman French brought many Latin-derived words into English, often in doublets: Latin-french pairs such as 'secure' and 'sure' or 'fragile' and 'frail'.

Romance future tense origin

Romance futures derive from Latin infinitive plus habēre: cantāre habeō became Italian canterò and Spanish cantaré, replacing the Classical Latin synthetic future.