Latin grammar is very different from English grammar in that Latin uses inflected words (words with the same root but different suffixes) to give a phrase or sentence meaning. English relies much more on word order. Latin grammar, like that of other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflected and so allows for a large degree of flexibility in choosing word order.
For example, (omitting capitals and punctuation for simplicity), the sentence femina togam texuit meaning "the woman wove a toga", represents the preferred word order. However, the meaning could be, still correctly, as texuit togam femina or togam texuit femina. Each word's suffix (-a, -am and -uit) indicates the word's grammatical function as a subject, object and verb, respectively. The suffixes provide the sentence with its particular meaning.
Charles Edwin Bennett (April 6, 1858 – May 2, 1921) was an American classical scholar and the Goldwin Smith Professor of Latin at Cornell University. He is best remembered for his book New Latin Grammar, first published in 1895.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Bennett graduated from Brown University in 1878 and also studied at Harvard (1881–1882) and in Germany (1882–1884). He taught in secondary schools in Florida (1878–1879), New York (1879–1881), and Nebraska (1885–1889), and became professor of Latin in the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1889, of classical philology at Brown University in 1891, and of Latin at Cornell University in 1892. His syntactical studies, notably various papers on the subjunctive, are based on a statistical examination of Latin texts and are marked by a fresh system of nomenclature; he ranks as one of the leaders of the New American School of syntacticians, who insist on a preliminary re-examination of all available data.
For example, (omitting capitals and punctuation for simplicity), the sentence femina togam texuit meaning "the woman wove a toga", represents the preferred word order. However, the meaning could be, still correctly, as texuit togam femina or togam texuit femina. Each word's suffix (-a, -am and -uit) indicates the word's grammatical function as a subject, object and verb, respectively. The suffixes provide the sentence with its particular meaning.
Charles Edwin Bennett (April 6, 1858 – May 2, 1921) was an American classical scholar and the Goldwin Smith Professor of Latin at Cornell University. He is best remembered for his book New Latin Grammar, first published in 1895.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Bennett graduated from Brown University in 1878 and also studied at Harvard (1881–1882) and in Germany (1882–1884). He taught in secondary schools in Florida (1878–1879), New York (1879–1881), and Nebraska (1885–1889), and became professor of Latin in the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1889, of classical philology at Brown University in 1891, and of Latin at Cornell University in 1892. His syntactical studies, notably various papers on the subjunctive, are based on a statistical examination of Latin texts and are marked by a fresh system of nomenclature; he ranks as one of the leaders of the New American School of syntacticians, who insist on a preliminary re-examination of all available data.
