Latin Grammar Mini-Series | Lesson 4.1 - Understanding Neuter and Substantive nouns in the Second Declension

There are three important rules to remember here: 

Neuter nominative and accusative forms are always the same; 

An adjective agrees with the noun it modifies in number, gender and case; 

A substantive derives its substance from its gender. 

Neuter gender

Along with masculine and feminine, Latin also has a neuter gender meaning “neither,” referring to how it is neither masculine nor feminine. Thus neuter gender is often applied to things which don’t have a natural gender, words like: “war” bellum, “iron” ferrum, or “danger” periculum. But it’s not as simple as that. There are many exceptions to this rule and thus in Latin things which are masculine in gender are not necessarily always male in nature. The same holds true for the other two genders. 

So in Latin it’s not as straightforward as it is in English where “he,” the masculine pronoun, almost always refers to something male or “she,” the feminine pronoun, something female, or “it,” the neuter pronoun, something without gender. In Latin there are many things which we English speakers see as not having natural gender and so we refer to any of these things in the singular as “it,” but in Latin these same things are masculine or feminine. For instance, “penalty” poena is a feminine word, “agricola” farmer is also feminine, as is “memory” memoria; “book” liber is masculine, and “year” annus is too, as is “grief” dolor. Therefore, at the end of the day, gender in Latin is arbitrary and must be memorized for each noun. 

Patterns do exist, however, that can aid in memorizing a word’s gender. For instance, first-declension nouns which have -a in their nominative singular are almost always feminine. In the same way, second declension nouns ending in -us in their nominative singular are almost always masculine. As we study other declensions and see patterns which can help in memorizing gender, we’ll point them out. Second-declension neuter nouns. Here are the endings for second declension neuter. Note: the nominative singular ending, -um. In second declension singular, that’s the only difference between masculine and neuter forms. In the plural, there are only two differences: the -a ending found in the nominative and accusative of the neuter. And there is one thing to be very careful of here: the neuter nominative and accusative plural -a ending looks a lot like the nominative singular feminine ending in first declension. Confusing these two endings is an easy mistake to make, but because no Latin noun is both first and second declension, these endings do not actually overlap in any way which just underscores the importance of knowing which declension a Latin noun belongs to.

Here’s an example of a second-declension neuter noun: bellum, a word which means “war.” Let’s decline it together: 

Bellum, Belli, Bello, Bellum, Bello, Bella, Bellorum, Bellis, Bella, Bellis

2. Substantives are words that are fundamentally adjectives but they function as nouns. Such as the adjective “good.” It can serve as a substantive, that is, as a noun. So, for instance, if you talk about the “goods” in the store, “goods” is a noun meaning “the good things” in the store. The adjective is serving as a noun and that’s a substantive. Similarly, you can talk about a “swift,” a fast-flying bird. Birds are nouns but the word “swift” is at heart an adjective. In English we often show that an adjective is functioning as a substantive by pluralizing it or putting an article in front of it, such as, “electronics,” or “the young and the restless.”

So this is how substantives work: you’re reading along in a Latin sentence and you come to an adjective. It doesn’t have a noun to modify. You look at its gender. If the gender is masculine you add “man” or “men” to the translation of the adjective. If the adjective is feminine, you add “woman” or “women,” and if it’s neuter, “thing” or “things.”