Third Declension Adjectives Chapter 16: Third Declension Adjectives

Third Declension Adjectives So far, we’ve learned the group of adjectives known as 1st/2nd declension adjectives (e.g. magnus, a, um or pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum) The other major group of adjectives is known as the 3rd declension adjectives, and they decline like 3rd-declension i-stem nouns.

Review: Third Declension i-Stems M/F Sing M/F Pl N Sing N Pl Nom civis cives animal animalia Gen civium animalis animalium Dat civi civibus animali animalibus Acc civem Abl cive

Third Declension Adjectives 3rd declension adjectives decline just like that, except that they have –i as the ending for the ablative singular in all genders. So: Abl sing (all genders) = -i Gen pl (all genders) = -ium Nom/Acc pl (neuters) = -ia

Third Declension Adjectives We divide up adjectives from this group into three categories. The only difference between these categories is in the nominative singular: adjectives can have Three forms (one for each gender) Two forms (one for M&F, one for N) One form (one for all three genders) We call these different categories 3-ending, 2-ending, and 1-ending adjectives, for obvious reasons.

Third Declension Adjectives 3-ending adjectives ex: acer, acris, acre sharp, keen celer, celeris, celere swift, quick 2-ending adjectives (the largest category) ex: fortis, forte strong, brave dulcis, dulce sweet 1-ending adjectives ex: potens, gen potentis powerful senex, gen senis old, aged

Third Declension Adjectives Just like 1st/2nd declension adjectives can be used to describe nouns of any declension, 3rd declension adjectives can be used to describe nouns of any declension. Ex: fortis rex, ingens porta Remember nouns and adjectives must agree in GENDER, NUMBER, and CASE!

Third Declension Adjectives The stem of 3-ending adjectives can be found by looking at the F or N form ex: acer, acris, acre: stem = acr- celer, celeris, celere: stem = celer- For 1-ending adjectives, Wheelock gives you the genitive form in the vocabulary entry.