Page:Latin for Beginners.djvu/22

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20. The Object. In the two sentences, The boy hit the ball and The ball hit the boy, the same words are used, but the meaning is different, and depends upon the order of the words. The doer of the act, that about which something is said, is, as we have seen above, the subject. That to which something is done is the direct object of the verb. The boy hit the ball is therefore analyzed as follows:


Subject Predicate
 
The boy hit the ball
  (verb) (direct object)

a. A verb whose action passes over to the object directly, as in the sentence above, is called a transitive verb. A verb which does not admit of a direct object is called intransitive, as, I walk, he comes.

21. The Copula. The verb to be in its different forms—are, is, was, etc.—does not tell us anything about the subject; neither does it govern an object. It simply connects the subject with the word or words in the predicate that possess a distinct meaning. Hence it it called the copula, that is, the joiner or link.

22. In the following sentences pronounce the Latin and name the nouns, verbs, subjects, objects, predicates, copulas:

1. America est patria mea 2. Agricola fīliam amat
America is fatherland my (The) farmer (his) daughter loves
3. Fīlia est Iūlia 4. Iūlia et agricola sunt in īnsulā
(His) daughter is Julia Julia and (the) farmer are on (the) island
5. Iūlia aquam portat 6. Rosam in comĭs habet
Julia water carries (A) rose in (her) hair (she) has
7. Iūlia est puella pulchra 8. Domina fīliam pulchram habet
Julia is (a) girl pretty (The) lady (a) daughter beautiful has

a. The sentence above shows that Latin does not express some words which are necessary in English. First of all, Latin has no article the or a; thus agricola may mean the farmer, a farmer, or simply farmer. Then, too, the personal pronouns, I, you, he, she, etc., and the possessive pronouns, my, your, his, her, etc., are not expressed if the meaning of the sentence is clear without them.