In our class there are twenty boys and girls.  Daily at eight o’clock they come from home with their books, and while they are at school they read with ease the books written by the Romans.  By patience and perseverance all things in this world can be overcome.

51. Prepositions.  While, as stated above (Sec. 41), many relations expressed in English by prepositions are in Latin expressed by case forms, still prepositions are of frequent occurrence, but only with the accusative or ablative.

52. RULE.  Object of a Preposition. A noun governed by a preposition must be in the Accusative or Ablative case.

53. Prepositions denoting the ablative relations from, with, in, on, are naturally followed by the ablative case.  Among these are

a:[1] or ab, from, away from de:, from, down from e:[1] or ex, from, out from, out of cum, with in, in, on

    [Footnote 1:  a:\ and e:\ are used only before words beginning with
    a consonant; ab\ and ex\ are used before either vowels or
    consonants.]

  1. Translate into Latin, using prepositions. In the water, on the
  land, down from the forest, with the fortune, out of the forests, from
  the victory, out of the waters, with the sailors, down from the moon.

54. Adjectives.  Examine the sentence

  Puella parva bonam deam amat,
    the little girl loves the good goddess

In this sentence parva\ (_little_) and bonam\ (good) are not nouns, but are descriptive words expressing quality.  Such words are called adjectives,[2] and they are said to belong to the noun which they describe.

[Footnote 2:  Pick out the adjectives in the following: “When I was a little boy, I remember that one cold winter’s morning I was accosted by a smiling man with an ax on his shoulder.  ’My pretty boy,’ said he, ‘has your father a grindstone?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said I.  ‘You are a fine little fellow,’ said he.  ’Will you let me grind my ax on it?’”]

You can tell by its ending to which noun an adjective belongs.  The ending of parva\ shows that it belongs to puella\, and the ending of bonam\ that it belongs to deam\.  Words that belong together are said to agree, and the belonging-together is called agreement.  Observe that the adjective and its noun agree in number and case.

55. Examine the sentences

  Puella est parva,
    the girl is little
  Puella parva bonam deam amat,
    the little girl loves the good goddess

In the first sentence the adjective parva\ is separated from its noun by the verb and stands in the predicate.  It is therefore called a _predicate adjective_.  In the second sentence the adjectives parva\ and bonam\ are closely attached to the nouns puella\ and deam\ respectively, and are called _attributive adjectives._