Introduction
Why Parse Sentences?
Understanding sentence structure helps you:
- Read difficult texts — When a Latin sentence has five nouns, which is the subject? The case ending tells you.
- Translate accurately — Canis hominem mordet and Hominem canis mordet both mean “The dog bites the man” because the endings, not the word order, indicate who does what.
- Write correctly — Knowing why “whom” is correct in “the man whom I saw” (object of saw) rather than “who.”
- Learn new languages faster — Recognising that Spanish escribía and French j’écrivais express the same grammatical concept (imperfect tense) as Latin scrībēbam.
How to Use This Guide
This guide assumes familiarity with two terms: - Verb: a word expressing action or state (runs, is, loves) - Noun: a word denoting a person, place, thing, or concept (soldier, Rome, book, freedom)
All other terminology is defined as needed.
Chapters
| If you need to understand… | See… |
|---|---|
| How nouns change form (case, number, gender) | Chapter 1: Nouns |
| How verbs work (tense, mood, voice) | Chapter 2: Verbs |
| How adjectives agree with nouns | Chapter 3: Adjectives |
| Pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions | Chapter 4: Other Parts of Speech |
| How words group into phrases | Chapter 5: Phrases |
| How clauses combine into sentences | Chapter 6: Clauses |
| Conditional sentences (if…then) | Chapter 6A: Conditionals |
| A step-by-step parsing method | Chapter 7: Parsing |
Reference Material
| For… | See… |
|---|---|
| Definitions of grammatical terms | Glossary |
| Quick reference for each language | Language Summaries |
| Verb conjugation tables | Conjugation Tables |
| Auxiliary verbs (have, be, will) | Auxiliary Verbs |
| Metre and verse analysis | Scansion |
| Historical relationships between languages | Language Families |
| Features unique to individual languages | Unusual Features |