Learning the Latin Accusative Case and Direct Objects

1. The Accusative Case Chapter 2

2. Review of Chapter 1 • In Chapter 1 you learned that Latin has 5 CASES. • Two important facts to remember: 1. The case of a noun is determined by its use in the sentence. 2. The ending of a Latin noun will tell you what case that word is in.

3. Review, continued • the Nominative case is used for subjects and predicate nominatives. • the Ablative Case is used as the object of the preposition, “in” .

4. Use of the Accusative Case • The first use of the Accusative case is for direct objects. Examples: • Will ate an apple. • Anna played the piano. • Michelle planted the tomato plants in the garden. Each of the highlighted words is a direct object, and it would have an accusative ending.

5. Direct Objects and their Verbs • A direct object receives the action of a verb.    •  The direct object will answer who? or what? after the verb. Examples: •   Matthew hit the ball.  What did he hit?  The ball . . . . . .ball is the direct object. •       I love you!  Whom do I love?  You . . .. . .You is the direct object.

6. Action Verbs • Notice that to have a direct object, you must have an action verb.   • Linking verbs (est, sunt) are never followed by direct objects.

7. Accusative Endings • In Latin, direct objects will have an Accusative ending.  •  The Accusative endings for all three declensions are listed below.  N.B.  All singular direct objects end in –m; all plural direct objects end in –s.

8. Word Order • Typically, the word order in a Latin sentence is: Subject Direct Object Verb S DO V HOWEVER…the use of the noun is dictated by the ENDING, not the word order.

9. Recap • You have now learned 3 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Ablative.