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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: learning Latin nouns
In-Reply-To: etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk's message of 10 Apr 1995 11:46:52 GMT
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In article <3mb5rc$ci5@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk
(Edmund Grimley-Evans) writes:

>Why is it traditional to list in dictionaries the nominative and genitive
>singular of Latin nouns and to encourage learners to memorise those forms?

Actually, any oblique case would do as well as the genitive--the point is to
show the stem change(s) in the oblique vis-a-vis the nominative singular.

>I once saw someone claim that the nominative singular and genitive plural are
>better forms to memorise. I can see that there is a problem with using those
>forms in dictionaries, because some nouns don't have a plural, or the plural
>has a different meaning. But what's wrong with nominative and ablative
>singular? Wouldn't that make the third declension easier to cope with?

I've made that claim from time to time; I'm sure that others have, as well.
Here, the point is that in 3rd declension i-stems, the genitive plural ending
-ium rather than -um would automatically assure the generation of the correct
forms in the singular and plural.  The ablative singular is weaker because the
neuter differs from the non-neuter.

As for words lacking plurals, there are also words that lack singulars--and the
corresponding plural forms are cited.  This could easily be accommodated, hmm?
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
