[Dr. Sivana]

“third declension neuter i-stem”

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/saywhat.wav

Latin nouns are categorized into five declensions. It is pretty arbitrary, like the divisions in pro sports. The word for "sea", mare, is a member of the third declension. This helps us know which endings to use.

"Neuter" is one of the three genders assigned in Latin. Many adjectives agree with the gender of the noun. And even some nouns can be used with different genders depending on whether the assignee is male or female. For instance, the word alumnus is masculine, alumna is feminine. Outside of these usages however, the gender of the word does necessarily correspond to the sex of the object, it is just a handy device. As an example, the word for hand (or band of men), manus, is fourth declension feminine, regardless of whether it is a man's hand or woman's hand.

The term "i-stem" indicates a sub-category unique to the third declension. Third declension neuter i-stems are a rarity in Latin (just as masculine first declension words are), but mare happens to be one of them. Animal and calcar, which mean animal and spur, respectively, are two others.

Latin has a lot of fun sound expressions that are actually straightforward, such as the passive periphrastic, which is actually easy to translate into English.

[cynwoody]

For instance, the word alumnus is masculine, alumna is feminine.

The Russians do that with surnames. For instance, Valentina Tereshkova is the daughter of Vladimir Tereshkov.

[terycarl]

Latin nouns are categorized into five declensions. It is pretty arbitrary, like the divisions in pro sports. The word for "sea", mare, is a member of the third declension. This helps us know which endings to use. "Neuter" is one of the three genders assigned in Latin. Many adjectives agree with the gender of the noun. And even some nouns can be used with different genders depending on whether the assignee is male or female. For instance, the word alumnus is masculine, alumna is feminine. Outside of these usages however, the gender of the word does necessarily correspond to the sex of the object, it is just a handy device. As an example, the word for hand (or band of men), manus, is fourth declension feminine, regardless of whether it is a man's hand or woman's hand. The term "i-stem" indicates a sub-category unique to the third declension. Third declension neuter i-stems are a rarity in Latin (just as masculine first declension words are), but mare happens to be one of them. Animal and calcar, which mean animal and spur, respectively, are two others. Latin has a lot of fun sound expressions that are actually straightforward, such as the passive periphrastic, which is actually easy to translate into English.

darn, you beat me to it, I was just about to post the exact same thing.......I'm just too slow....mea culpa!