17
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Does Latin have any neuter words for humans?
It depends on how much emphasis you put on "unambiguously refers to an individual human being". I don't know of any examples that are just like παιδίον or Mädchen. Several Latin grammars ...
- 30.1k
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Where do the plurals of locus come from?
As usual, to answer this question we need to step into our comparative linguistics-fueled time machine and go back to Proto-Indo-European times, so we can see what function the ending -a, which we ...
- 31.5k
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Is any animal neuter in Latin?
Ostreum, -i n (seashell, oyster) gave the ancients trouble.
There is also a feminine form ostrea, -ae f, and the neutral form was disparaged on the grounds that there were no neutral animal names in ...
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13
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Why is *dōna* the plural acc. Instead of *donos* like the rest of the 2nd declensions?
Dōnum is neuter; amīcus, fīlius, and ager are masculine. Neuter nouns are always the same in both the nominative and accusative case, in both singular and plural. See this question for more about how ...
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11
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Is any animal neuter in Latin?
In general, words referring to animate beings were not neuter in Latin. This goes for both words referring to types of humans and words referring to types of animals. (A small number of exceptions ...
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10
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Struggling with the neuter gender when translating this movie quote
I would get rid of the if…then construction here, and rely on the verbs: quod sanguinat perit, "that which [can] bleed, [can] perish". This is a bit less explicit about who's doing the ...
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10
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Was "Pascha" ever used as a neuter first-declension noun?
Actually Du Cange (Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis) records a lot of examples of the neuter form Pascha, -ae, which he seems to prefer.
"Orat. et prec. de Pascha annotino"
"...
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Is it possible to predict the gender of nouns?
I'm not sure this covers all relevant ideas, so any addition/clarification is appreciated.
Four ideas that can help you:
Regarding logics as to certain types of nouns being predictably neuter by ...
- 11.6k
9
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Forms of 2nd Declension Neuter Nouns ending in -ium
Here’s a summary of what most authoritative Latin grammars say on the genitive singular ending of –io stems (Weiss 2009/2011: 222-223; Leumann 1977: 424-425; Sihler ). For the sake of simplicity and ...
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8
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Why is -d used instead of -m for most neuter pronouns
There isn't really an answer to the "why" question beyond the fact that in Proto-Indo-European, some of the case endings for pronouns were different from those for nouns, for unknown reasons. Among ...
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8
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Accusative equals nominative for neuter words – how universal is this and why?
For the sake of completeness, it seems worth noting that there's one odd exception.
The gerund is a noun derived from a verb, representing an action (for example, volāndum "flying"). For the most ...
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8
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Forms of 2nd Declension Neuter Nouns ending in -ium
Edgar H. Sturtevant's dissertation "Contraction in the case forms of the Latin io- and ia stems, and of deus, is, and idem" (1902) seems to have some relevant info, although I don't know if ...
- 30.1k
8
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Why is *dōna* the plural acc. Instead of *donos* like the rest of the 2nd declensions?
This is because of the gender of the noun. Donum is neuter, wheras filius, amicus, etc, are masculine. The plural accusative for 2nd declension neuter nouns is -a.
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'Aurifer' or 'Auriferus'?
Yes, the correct form is aurifer, though in early Old Latin it would have been *auriferos (actually *ausiferos), as you'd expect.
For second-declension nouns with stems ending in r (original r, not ...
- 11.1k
7
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Why is *dōna* the plural acc. Instead of *donos* like the rest of the 2nd declensions?
donum is neuter, and hence its ending in both the nominative and accusative plural is -a.
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Was "Pascha" ever used as a neuter first-declension noun?
Never realized that, but you have an example (nominative-only, though) in ecclesiastical Latin in the hymn Lauda Sion:
In hac mensa novi Regis
Novum Pascha novae legis
Phase vetus terminat
...
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7
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When were neuter nouns used in the vocative?
Defining the vocative: something like "a form used for address"
I didn't give a definition of "vocative" in my original question, but it seems like it might be worthwhile, since there are a few ...
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7
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Relative Clause of Purpose with Quo
Celerius is the comparative adverb of celer,-is,-e and modifies the subjunctive verb adveniatis.
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Is it possible to predict the gender of nouns?
I was reading a new corpus study on gender assignment the other day - Hoffmann 2016 Gender in Latin and in language typology (in Latinitas Rationes, ed. P. Poccetti).
Based on two corpus studies, ...
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6
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Forms of 2nd Declension Neuter Nouns ending in -ium
A full table of "standard" (post-Augustan) -ius/-ium endings would be:
M SG M PL N SG N PL
NOM -ius -iī -ium -ia
GEN -iī -iōrum -iī -iōrum
DAT -iō -iīs -iō -...
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5
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Is any animal neuter in Latin?
The only exceptions to the rule "all animals must have gendered names" I can think of come with heavy qualifiers.
Cete means whales, and it is neuter, but its singular is cetus, which is masculine.
...
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Do any non-second-declension neuter nouns end in m?
Bethlehem, n., indecl. Though a borrowing, clearly does not belong to the second declension. Note that there is also the alternative Bethlehemum, -i, which does belong to the 2nd.
I suspect there are ...
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5
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Do any non-second-declension neuter nouns end in m?
The etymological explanation (which of course only takes the question a stage further back) is that in PIE, thematic inanimate nouns had the nom./acc. sg. ending *-om, while athematic inanimate nouns ...
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4
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Accusative equals nominative for neuter words – how universal is this and why?
Feels a little cheap as an answer here, but the auto-generated Related Links suggests to me the excellent Was “Pascha” ever used as a neuter first-declension noun? which provides a possible example of ...
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Accusative equals nominative for neuter words – how universal is this and why?
This rule applies to Russian, Germanic languages, Latin and ancient Greek as far as I know. So I suspect that it's a feature of the proto-IE language.
- 251
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Do any non-second-declension neuter nouns end in m?
I hadn't noticed this when I posted the question, but it turned out that the Wiktionary list that I mentioned in the original question contained at least one genuine word of interest. The word jūgerum/...
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Does Latin have any neuter words for humans?
Interestingly, nicknames for children are sometimes neuter in Latin. I know this isn't exactly what the question is asking, but it seems related.
https://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/gender
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Do first-declension neuter nouns or adjectives have plural forms?
I just found that Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre facilement la langue latine, by Claude Lancelot (? et al?), which I quoted in my previous question about Pascha, includes this word in a list of &...
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3
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How did vulgus get its ending?
There surely is an etymological reason, but unfortunately we don’t know it. Or there is no consensus about it.
All grammars mention the three second-declension neuters in -us, pelagus, virus and ...
- 3,276
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When were neuter nouns used in the vocative?
Neuter plural in "o tempora, o mores" (Cicero, as classical as you can get).
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