DI: Lesson - Relative Pronouns - Skill Building

Skill Building

Let's take a moment to work on two major skills: finding the antecedent in a Latin sentence and determining the correct relative pronoun (reverse engineering to create a relative pronoun).

Determining the Antecedent

Below you will find a set of steps that you can use to determine the antecedent. Generally, the antecedent will be directly in front of the relative pronoun, but these steps will ensure that you have found the correct antecedent for a particular pronoun. We will be using the following Latin sentence containing a relative pronoun:

Magna turba, quae erat plena multorum clarorumque populorum, contraxerat.

• Find the relative pronoun
  • The relative pronoun is almost always immediately after a comma. Here we see: quae.
• Determine the gender and number of the relative pronoun.
  • Many relative pronouns could be more than one, so list options. Options for quae are:
    • quae = feminine nominative singular
    • quae = feminine nominative plural
    • quae = neuter nominative plural 
    • quae = neuter accusative plural
  • Using grammar, eliminate any options that couldn't work. In this case, we see erat, which is singular. That means the relative pronoun cannot be nominative plural, eliminating feminine nominative plural and neuter nominative plural leaving just two options:
    • feminine, singular
    • neuter, plural
• List the nouns from the independent clause, including the number and gender for each.
  • In this case, there is only one noun:
    • turba
      • feminine, singular (turba, turbae, f. = 1st declension, so the -a ending must be singular)
• Match up the gender and number of your relative pronoun to the gender and number of your nouns. At least one should match!
  • turba = feminine, singular
  • quae = feminine, singular (eliminating neuter plural)
• Turba is the antecedent of quae.

Nota bene

• If there are two nouns that could be the antecedent, choose the one that is closest to the relative pronoun.
  • Inter celebres erant multi ceteri, qui professionaliter lugebant.
    • qui is masculine and plural
    • both celebres and ceteri are masculine and plural
    • ceteri is closest to qui, so is the antecedent

Can you determine the correct pronoun form?

Use what you have learned about antecedents and relative pronouns to try to figure out the correct relative pronoun.

Magna turba, _____ erat plena multorum clarorumque populorum, contraxerat.

• The antecedent determines the gender and number (turba = feminine, singular).
• The relative clause determines the case of the relative pronoun (here, it will be the subject of erat, so nominative).
• The feminine, nominative, singular relative pronoun is: quae
  • Hopefully, you have the relative pronoun forms memorized. If not, use the relative pronoun chart from your notes to find the correct form.

Practice Activities

Activity 1 - Determine the Antecedent

Activity 2 - Can you determine the correct pronoun form?