What is 'S' in latin grammar. Singular or something else?
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Grisson (
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January 8th, 2009
During the holidays the question came up whether the word ‘venison’ was derived the same way as the word for other meats, from the French word for the animal. The answer was ‘sorta’, because it is derived from the old French and Latin words for hunting.
The latin origin was ‘venation’ (hunting) and was followed by an ‘S’ indicating something about the grammar. Does that mean ‘hunting’ singular, and if so, what does the singular of a participial mean? The product of hunting? (i.e. game?)
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7 Answers
Actually, Latin word ‘to hunt’ is venor, ‘tion’ is not a Latin suffix. Words ending in an ‘s’ in Latin can mean many things, depending whether it is a noun, verb, masculine, feminine, etc. For example: the singular word for house or home in latin in domus.
I think the singular ‘I hunt’ in Latin is venatio, but I am pretty rusty. The plural present for ‘we hunt’ should be venatamus.
b, think grissom was trying to ask what the present participle of ‘to hunt’ would be in Latin, not the present tense indicative.
My guess would be that it stands for Substantivum, which means “noun”
1250–1300; ME ven(a)ison < OF veneison, venaison < L vēnātiōn (s. of vēnātiō hunting),
Dictionary.com
So does ‘s’ mean singular here?
After seeing it in your citation, I don’t think Substantivum is what they’re meaning here. “Singular” does appear more likely, but the actual Latin noun is not venation, as far as I can tell, but either venatio or venationis.
OK, having consulted my daughter, who actually knows what she’s talking about, here’s the scoop:
This is a third declension noun, so its nominative case is venatio, and it’s genitive case is __venationis_. It’s a “stem changing”, noun so you have a stem which is not itself the nominative case onto which endings are tacked to form the various cases . In this case, that stem would be written venation- (the dash indicating that an ending is missing). So ”venation” is not a stand-alone form.
The “S” you’re asking about, then, does indicate that it’s a singular noun.
whew!
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