PECULLARITIES   OF  AGREEMENT                        17

LESSON II

PECULIARITIES OF AGREEMENT

8.   A verb having two or more subjects is regularly plural;
if the subjects are of different persons, the plural verb agrees
with the first person in preference to the second and the third,
and with the second in preference to the third.

You and I have taken our stand here, hie ego et tu constitimus.

9.   In Latin when an adjective describes two or more nouns
of different genders,

a.  Attributive adjectives regularly agree in gender and num¬
ber with the nearest noun.

Many pack animals and carts, multa iumenta et carri or multi carri
et iumenta; with not the same eagerness and enthusiasm, non eadem
alacritate ac studio.

b.   Predicate adjectives, including participles in compound
tenses, are very often plural: if the nouns all denote persons,
the plural adjectives are masculine; if the nouns all denote
things, the plural adjectives are neuter; if the nouns include
both persons and things, the adjectives may be masculine or
neuter plural, or may agree with the nearest noun. In Caesar,
however, under all these conditions, the adjective regularly
agrees with the nearest noun.

The work of the winter camp and the fortifications had not been entirely
completed, opus hibernorum munitionesque non plene erant per-
fectae; so great, said they, was the fame of his army and also the impres¬
sion {produced by it), tantum dixerunt esse nomen atque opinionem
eius exercitus; his daughter and one of his sons were captured, filia
atque unus e filiis captus est (here the emphatic unus requires a sin¬
gular verb).

Note. In practice it is best to introduce the common adjective
early in the sentence, immediately before or after one of the nouns,
and to make it agree with that noun.

MITCHELL'S NARR.   LATIN — 2