This verb often became -cĭ dere with prefixes, as we see in accident ( ad + cadere), incident, coincidence, and occident ( ob + cadere). Cadere has some recognizable derivatives that retain the vowel -a- : cadence, case (the grammatical kind, or “in case I see you”), decadent (“falling away”), and occasion. The close similarity of cadere, casus (“fall”) and caedere, caesus (“cut”) has been the bane of Latin students through the ages. Other good verbs on which to practise are ducere, ductus and scribere, scriptus. Notice the virtual disappearance of the base trah- in English its only survival is the mathematical term subtrahend. Similarly, try these for trahere: tractor, traction, abstract, contract, detract, distract, extract, protract, retract, subtract-and all their counterparts in -ion ( abstraction, etc.). Here are some suggestions to get the juices flowing on mittere: mission, missive, missile, admit, admission, admittance, commit, commission, dismiss, emit, emission, intermittent, intermission, permit, permission, permissive, promise, submit, submission, submissive, transmit, transmission. (If you are drowning on the French Riviera, shout “au secours!” in Italy, try “soccorso!”) Do you see any semantic link between the modern English meanings of concur and concede?įor other prefix exercises of this kind, try mittere, missus (“send”) and trahere, tractus (“drag, draw”). Can you relate all these words to running? Succour, for instance is “running beneath” ( sub-currere) to offer help. We can perform the same exercise with currere, cursus, finding derivatives like current, course, cursor, cursory, cursive concur, concurrent, concurrence, concourse discourse, discursive excursus, excursion occur, occurrence (what is the prefix?) precu rsor (“forerunner”) recur, recurrent, recurrence, recourse and succour. Predecessor and ancestor (L antecessor) also belong somewhere on this list. After we study Latin present participles, we’ll understand antecedent (“going before,” a word for grammarians) and decedent (“going down”, a word for Perry Mason fans). If flood waters are receding, that is happy news if male chins or hairlines are receding, that is not so good. Closer to the Latin spelling are accede (< ad-cedere, “go toward”), concede (“go together”), precede (“go before”), recede (“go back”), and secede (“go apart”), along with all their corresponding nouns in -cession. Thus we have proceed (“go forward”) and procession exceed (“go out”) and excess, excessive succeed (< sub-cedere, literally “go under”) and success, succession. It is distinctly confusing that some cedere derivatives are spelled -ceed and others -cede-but English is that kind of language. Intercede and intercession, for example, suggest “going between” notice again how our English verb derivative comes from the present infinitive and the noun from the perfect participle. With prefixes attached, it was a more neutral verb of going. When it stood alone, cedere, cessus tended to mean “yield,” a force that it has in our word cede and the legal term cession. To illustrate how many prefixes can be used with some Latin verb bases, let us take a couple of verbs of motion, cedere and currer e. If the following list looks intimidating, do at least read it through several times, linking the Latin verb bases with their English meanings and their more obvious English derivatives. Like the 2nd conjugation, the 3rd has no predictable perfect participles but by studying those forms with English derivatives in mind, it is not an overwhelming task to learn them. Typical 3rd conjugation infinitives, therefore, will be ágĕ re, cé d ĕ re, mí tt ĕ re, ré g ĕ re, scrí b ĕ re. Its present infinitive does not have a strong ending like the -ā re of the 1st and the -ē re of the 2nd it is spelled -ere, but the vowel is short, so that the accent is placed on the preceding syllable. The 3rd conjugation is a very large group of verbs that includes some of the most common and fundamental roots in the Latin language.
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