Some help learning Latin?

Hello, i'm trying to learn Latin using a 12 step tutorial online. I'm learning about adjectives and it gives me two examples of them in use;



1) Totum manerium dimidium mercatum terras alias et octo marcas filiis Henrici do = I give the whole manor, half the market, other lands and eight marks to the sons of Henry.



In this statement, my question is why are 'terras' and 'marcas' the objects (accusative plural) of the sentence and not the manor or market, which are in nominative singular?



2) Et debent unam marcam alii domino = And they owe one mark to the other lord.



This one also confuses me. Why is the verb (debent) at the start of the sentence when it is normally at the end? Secondly, why is the 'marcam' necessarily female?



I apologise if these questions are really obvious, but i'm just learning and i need some explanations. I'd really appreciate a bit of help :)Some help learning Latin?
Hi, well done for learning Latin!



Your questions are not stupid at all. Let's see:



1) Totum manerium dimidium mercatum terras alias et octo marcas filiis Henrici do = I give the whole manor, half the market, other lands and eight marks to the sons of Henry.



In this statement, my question is why are 'terras' and 'marcas' the objects (accusative plural) of the sentence and not the manor or market, which are in nominative singular?



A - the manor and the market are also in Accusative. Since they are neuter, Nominative and Accusative are the same - ie, their form doesn't change from subject to direct object. The only subject here is 'Ego', which is implied. If you check a dictionary, you'll see them written as 'manerium, ii' and 'mercatum, i' - -um is the ending of neuter words.



2) Et debent unam marcam alii domino = And they owe one mark to the other lord.



This one also confuses me. Why is the verb (debent) at the start of the sentence when it is normally at the end? Secondly, why is the 'marcam' necessarily female?



A - The verb is often at the end, but not always. It is a myth that just because Latin has different endings, word order doesn't matter. Just like in English, some orders are more pleasing to the ear than others, even if all are technically correct. Also, you normally put first the term you give the most importance to. Maybe here the writer wants to highlight the fact that the debt has been paid, rather than how much it was owed.

All names in Latin are masculine, feminine or neuter. There is no logical explanation as to why (other than the obvious words, like man or woman). In this sentence you can see the marcam is feminine because it ends in -am - a masculine or neuter noun would end in -um.



If you have any more questions, if you want I'll check your profile in the next days and help you out. I am a teacher but don't have any students in Latin at the moment, and I quite miss it :)Some help learning Latin?
these examples are from medieval Latin, where the grammar sometimes varies from classical Latin - and can be dodgy!! - you will get more help from a beginner's Latin book - plenty available from online bookshops. Plus with classical Latin, [a] it's more useful for a start and [b] dictionaries are readily available - the Medieval Latin wordlist [Latham[] is really not awfully useful for beginners.

Meanwhile -

it doesn;t matter where the verb goes. It's NOT normally at the end. Because the grammatical endings tell you what part each word plays - whether it's accusative, genitive or whatever - and the subject will be in the nominative - so it doesn't matter where you put the verb.

Nouns have gender - masculine, feminine or neuter. That does not make them male or female - it's called " grammatical gender". Marca, a mark, a sum of money, is a feminine noun, so the acc. is marcam.

Now, back to the first sentence. All the things that the writer is giving to the sons of Henry are in the accusative - ocyo marcas plural, 8 marks; terras alias, other lands, plural also. totum manerium - the whole manor - neuter noun, acc and nom are the same [ with a masculine noun the nom would probably end -us] ; similarly with half the market. If you think about it manor and market should really be in the genitive [after all OF and half OF] but this was written in the Middle Ages and the scribe isn't perfect.

Truly, it is easier to learn basic classical Latin first - we usually do that at school, then specialize in a bit of Med Lat at un, if you need it for reading old documents and so on. Good luck!