Ludi Romani (Nova Roma)/Certamen Latinum

Rules of the Certamen Latinum

1. Questions are posted daily, one question per one day. There will be 6 questions in total.

2. Answers are to be sent to <cnaeus_cornelius@yahoo.com> before the posting of next day's question (approximately within 24 hours).

Question 1 (September 10th)

I. INTRODUCTION 1 - Verbs in the Present

Verbs are words which express what happens in a sentence: action or state of being, like "to go", "to walk", "to see", "to be".

Latin indicates grammatical information by "inflection": by changing the ending of the words. When English says "I have", "we have", Latin says "habeo" and "habemus". English puts "I" and "we" before the verb, Latin adds different endings, "-o" and "-mus", to the end of the verb.

THE CONJUGATIONS

Latin verbs are gr ouped into 4 conjugations (verb inflection groups). To determine which conjugation group a verb belongs to, you have to look at the dictionary form of the verb. In the case of the verb “have”, you will find:

"habeo, habére, habui, habitum" (I have, to have, I had, the had one)

When we want to conjugate a verb in the PRESENT tense, we must look at the 2nd dictionary form, the infinitive:

"habére" (to have)

The infinitive, “hab-ére” (to have) shows that this verb belongs to the 2nd conjugation, because all verbs that have the infinitive ending “-ére” belong to the 2nd conjugation.

WHICH VERB WHICH CONJUGATION?

The second dictionary element, the infinitive, determines which conjugation the verb belongs to. The 4 variants of infinitive endings and the 4 conjugations determined by the different infinitive endings are:

-are = 1st conjugation (e.g. amo, amare, amavi, amatum) -ére = 2nd conjugation (e.g. habeo, habére, habui, habitum) -ere = 3rd conjugation (e.g. dico, dicere, dixi, dictum) -ire = 4th conjugation (e.g. audio, audire, audivi, auditum)

Note that “–ere”, which is short vowel, is different from “–ére”, which is long vowel.

HOW TO CONJUGATE A VERB IN PRESENT?

Cut off the infinitive endings -are, -ére, -ere and -ire, and replace them with the personal endings shown in this table (follow the link):

http://novaroma.org/nr/Conjugation#Present_Tense

II. QUESTION 1

- Choose ONE verb from these verbs given in their dictionary forms, and conjugate it in Present Tense.

- Send your solution to <cnaeus_cornelius@yahoo.com>

video, -ére, vidi, visum (see)

puto, -are, -avi, -atum (think)

lego, -ere, legi, lectum (read)

deleo, -ére, -évi, -étum (delete)

facio, -ere, feci, factum (make)

III. AN EXAMPLE HOW TO DO IT:

cupio, -ere, -ivi, -itum (wish);

- The 2nd dictionary form (infinitive) is abbreviated as "-ere", which means that its full infinitive form written out is: "cupere". - The infinitive ending "-ere" marks the 3rd Conjugation. - In the conjugation table of our website (following the link given above) you will find two columns for the 3rd Conjugation: I-Stem and Consonant Stem. The ending of the 1st dictionary form (cupio "I wish") determines if a 3rd Conjugation verb is of I-Stem or Consonant Stem. It's I-Stem, if the 1st dictionary form ending is "-io". It's Consonant Stem, if the 1st dictionary form ending is "-o". For "cupio", it's I-Stem as the ending "-io" shows. - You look at the conjugation table, Present Tense personal endings in 3rd Conjugation I-Stem, and add the personal endings to "cupio". You will write the following forms:

cupio - I wish

cupis - you wish

cupit - he wishes

cupimus - we wish

cupitis - you (plural) wish

cupiunt - they wish

Answer 1

Question 2 (September 11th)

Answer 2

Question 3 (September 12th)

Answer 3

Question 4 (September 13th)

Answer 4

Question 5 (September 14th)

Answer 5

Question 6 (September 15th)

Answer 6

Final Results

The scores and final positions are:

• 1st Place:
• 2nd Place:
• 3rd Place:
• 4th Place:
• 5th Place: