Lesson 6 – ‘Hic, hec, hoc’, third and fourth conjugation verbs

hic, hec, hoc

Hic, hec, hoc has several meanings

‘This’ when one of these words is an adjective – describing a noun
‘He, she, it’ when it’s a pronoun – standing in for a noun

hic, hec, hoc agrees with the noun it relates to.

Singular
Case	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Adjective	Pronoun
Nominative	hic	hec	hoc	this	he, she, it
Accusative	hunc	hanc	hoc	this	him, her, it
Genitive	huius	huius	huius	of this	his, her, its
Dative	huic	huic	huic	to this	to him/her/it
Ablative	hoc	hac	hoc	by this	by him/her/it

Plural
Case	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Adjective	Pronoun
Nominative	hi	he	hec	these	they
Accusative	hos	has	hec	these	them
Genitive	horum	harum	horum	of these	their
Dative	his or hiis	his or hiis	his or hiis	to these	to them
Ablative	his or hiis	his or hiis	his or hiis	by these	by them

hec est concordia	this is the agreement	concordia, -e (f.) agreement
confirmamus hac carta hec maneria domino	we confirm by this charter these manors to the lord.
lego hoc testamento has predictas septem acras terre	I bequeath by this will these aforesaid seven acres of land.	acra, -e (f.) acre
hi sunt plegii Edwardi Basset	These are the pledges of Edward Basset	plegius, -i (m.) pledge

As always, don’t try to learn all of the endings at once! First look for patterns

Genitive singular is the same for all genders
Dative singular is the same for all genders
Nominative singular and accusative singular are the same for neuter
Dative and ablative plurals are the same

Third conjugation verbs

Verbs from the third conjugation end ‘–ere’.

When the ‘-ere’ is removed, the stem is either a consonant or ‘u’.

cognoscere	to know, get to know
concedere	to concede, grant, allow
dicere	to say
mittere	to send
ostendere	to show
petere	to require, seek, petition
reddere	to give back, pay
solvere	to pay

To conjugate these verbs

Remove the ‘-ere’ to find the stem
Add these endings

Latin	English
-o	I
-is	you (singular)
-it	he/she/it
-imus	we
-itis	you (plural)
-unt	they

Look at our example of concedere – to concede

Latin	English
concedo	I concede
concedis	you concede (singular)
concedit	he/she/it concedes
concedimus	we concede
conceditis	you concede (plural)
concedunt	they concede

regina totum manerium Westmonasterii magistro Stephano concedit	The queen concedes the whole manor of Westminster to master Stephen

vidue predictas terras filiabus domini non reddunt	The widows do not surrender the aforesaid lands to the daughters of the lord.

nos Edwardus et Johanna tres marcas domino novo solvimus	We, Edward and Joanna, pay three marks to the new lord.	Johanna, -e (f.) Joanna

predicta vidua reginam novam petit	the aforesaid widow petitions the new queen

Maria dicit quod non habet cartam	Mary says that she does not have the charter	quod, because, that (after ‘to know’,‘to say’ etc.)

Some third conjugation verbs are called ‘io’ verbs because they have different endings

-io for the ‘I’ form (instead of –o)
-iunt for the ‘they’ form (instead of –unt)

You are most likely to come across facere – to make, do

novum testamentum facio

I make a new will

Fourth conjugation verbs; obire

Verbs from the fourth conjugation end ‘-ire’.

audire	to hear
scire	to know
venire	to come

To conjugate these verbs, remove the ‘-ire’ and add these endings.

Latin	English
-io	I
-is	you (singular)
-it	he/she/it
-imus	we
-itis	you (plural)
-iunt	they

Look at our example of venire – to come

Latin	English
venio	I come
venis	you come (singular)
venit	he/she/it comes
venimus	we come
venitis	you come (plural)
veniunt	they come

agricole ad curiam veniunt	the farmers come to the court	ad curiam, -e (f.) to the court
non scio	I do not know

Handy hints – third and fourth conjugation verbs

Did you notice the similarities between the endings of regular third and fourth declension verbs? Look back at the lesson and check.

The difference is that in the fourth declension, the ‘I’ and ‘they’ forms have an ‘i’.

Noticing patterns like this makes learning Latin much easier.

Obire to die

This is an irregular verb, which although similar to a fourth conjugation verb, is a compound of ‘eo, ire, ivi, itum – to go’. It conjugates in the following way:

obeo	I die
obis	you die
obit	he/she dies
obimus	we die
obitis	you (pl) die
obeunt	they die

Checklist

Are you confident with:

The meanings of ‘hic, hec, hoc’?
How to decline a third conjugation verb like concedere?
How to decline a fourth conjugation verb like venire?
The difference between the endings of regular third and fourth conjugation verbs?

What next?

Go to Lesson 7