Dealing with the Dative
January Latin Challenge: Day 7 of 31
Today, for Day 7 of the January Latin Challenge, we will be dealing with the dative case in Latin. For now we will just be covering nouns in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd declensions, but if you want to know more make sure to sign up so you don’t miss my posts on the 4th and 5th declensions.
Before we start, make sure you have downloaded my free guide to all the noun endings. It will really help you to get familiar with all the cases for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions.
What is the Dative Case for?
The dative is a really useful case for lots of reasons, and it is used in several different ways. It is what is called the “indirect object” of a sentence. A noun in the dative case is almost always translated using the words to or for.
Here’s an example sentence.
The friend gave wine to the mistress.
The friend is in charge, so they are the nominative of the sentence. The wine is being given, so it’s the accusative, or the direct object.
The mistress is the indirect object of the sentence - the wine is being given TO her. She is in the dative case.
Important note about English:
I have said that we translate the dative case using the words to or for. However, English is a pain, and doesn’t always listen to me. For example, look at these sentences:
Romans liked to offer hospitality to guests.
He showed me the food.
In the first, I have two uses of the word to in my sentence! So which word is the dative? Well first of all liked to offer is a verb followed by an infinitive verb - offer here is a verb, not a noun, and verbs don’t have cases! I have a nominative, Romans, then my verb, liked, then an infinitive to offer, an accusative hospitality, and finally my dative: to guests. The guests are the indirect object - the hospitality is given TO them.
In the second examples, there is no to or for here, I’ve tricked you. However, one of these words is still a dative. The Latin would be very clear here, in English we are just a bit lazy! The nominative is he, and the food is the accusative, as it is having the verb done to it. The indirect object is me. Imagine instead the sentence said he showed the food to me, and it’s clear that me should be in the dative.
Now we have it sorted in English.
Let’s have a look at some Latin. It’s exactly the same theory in Latin as in the English sentences we have just seen, but Latin helpfully has clear endings we can learn to show which noun is the dative.
Here are the noun endings for the dative case.
Remember in Latin we have “declensions”, which are just groups of nouns that change in the same way. I am only showing you the dative endings here, but don’t forget that for the whole table of cases, you can download the free noun endings cheat sheet here. I really recommend you do this as it will help with all the case endings for the first 3 declensions.
The 1st and 2nd plurals are easy, the -is ending is repeated throughout. The 3rd plural is also very recognisable with the -ibus ending, it’s one of my favourites!
Remember that the 3rd declension can have a big change in the stem from the nominative. regi comes from rex meaning king!
Top Tip: Some verbs in Latin “take the dative”
This means that when you see them you should expect to see a noun in the dative.
It makes sense when you see the verbs. Here is a list of a few that you might meet:
credit - he/she believes [give credit to]
favet - he/she supports [give support to]
fidit - he/she trusts [give trust to]
imperat - he/she commands, orders [give a command to]
paret -he/she obeys [give obedience to]
respondet - he/she answers [respond to]
servit - he/she serves [give service to]
placet mihi - I like [it is pleasing to me]
In English it can be difficult to see why some of these should need a dative noun, but if you look at how I have translated them more literally, it should be clear. You do not need to use the bracketed translations, they are just to illustrate the point.
Time to look at some Latin sentences! The vocab below is split into nouns and verbs for ease, with all nouns in the nominative singular. Try to translate each one. Remember to check the noun endings to see which case they are in!
rex clementiam inimicis dedit.
puer epistulam ancillae refert.
mercatores candidato favent.
Translation and explanation below - don’t read on until you are ready!
The dative here is inimicis - if you look at the endings table it matches the 2nd declension dative plural. So it means to the enemies. Now I need to find out what they are the indirect object of.
rex is my nominative, so the king is in charge.
Next I go to the verb, dedit, which means gives. So I have the king gives “something” and then to the enemies.
What is he giving them? clementiam is my accusative - mercy.
The king gives mercy to the enemies.
ancillae could be genitive singular, dative singular or nominative plural!
I can be certain it isn’t nominative plural, as the verb refert is singular (he or she returns something), so my nominative will also have to singular.
It could be genitive, of the slave girl or dative to the slave girl. The dative makes the most sense, as we will see when we do the rest of the sentence, but you need to be able to keep both options in mind!
It might help to write both options above the word if you are working on paper.
puer is the boy, and he’s the nominative in charge of the sentence.
epistulam is the accusative, the letter.
So the whole sentence: the boy returns the letter to the slave girl.
mercatores is nominative plural, so they are in charge of the sentence.
favent means support, and it is another verb that takes the dative, so I should be expecting a dative noun.
And that’s candidato - to the candidate.
Literally it means the merchants give support to the candidate, or more naturally, the merchants support the candidate.
There you have it - the dative case in Latin.
I hope this was useful! Don’t forget to sign up to receive the next instalment of the bambasbat January Latin Challenge: Day 8! See you tomorrow!