Superlative Adjectives

• In English as well as Latin, there are degrees of adjectives

  • Positive - normal form of the adjective (i.e. tall)

  • Comparative - form used to compare differences between one object and another (i.e. taller)

  • Superlative - form used to describe something at the upper or lower limit of a quality (i.e. tallest)

• To form the superlative version of a Latin adjective, the suffix -issimus, -issima, -issimum is added to the adjective's stem

  • The stem of an adjective is found by removing the -a or -is from a Latin adjective

    • Ex. alta - altissimus, altissima, altissimum

Irregular Superlative Adjectives

• Some adjectives have exceptions to their formation rules

  • Adjectives ending in -r will add -rimus to the masculine form (i.e. pulcher -- pulcherrimus, -a, -um)

  • Adjectives ending in -lis will add -limus after first removing the -is (i.e. difficilis -- difficillimus, -a, -um)

• Other adjectives are simply completely irregular in form and must be memorized:

  • bonus, bona, bonum -- optimus, optima, optimum

  • malus, mala, malum -- pessimus, pessima, pessimum

  • parvus, parva, parvum -- minimus, minima, minimum

  • magnus, magna, magnum -- maximus, maxima, maximum

Future Tense Verbs

• To express actions that have not happened yet, we employ the future tense

• To form the future tense in Latin, first start with the infinitive (the 2nd principal part), drop the -re, and add -bi plus the regular endings (except -bo for ego and -bunt for 3rd person plurals)

• Please note that this applies to verbs ending in -are and -ēre -- we will learn rules for other verbs later!

Irregular Future Tense Verbs

• Irregular forms for esse and posse in the future tense are similar but should be memorized as they are used and seen frequently in Latin writing