LAT 511K (Accelerated Second-Year Latin 29470)

Professor: Andrew Riggsby

Time/place: M-F 11-12, WAG 208

OH: MTW 2-3 (and by appointment), WAG 207

Phone: 1-5742

E-mail: ariggsby@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

Description:

This course is designed to cover the second-year sequence in Latin within one semester, and thus prepare students for upper division classes the following semester. It will emphasize review of complex syntactical principles and the acquisition of rapid reading ability through the study of selected Latin texts. These will be drawn from products of the Roman educational system specifically, the mock court-cases called Declamations, rhetorical exercises pursued by young and old alike in the Late Republic and Early Principate. The Declaimer stood up and argued an Action-At-Something-Like-Law, pursuing impossibly tortured cases in a Never-Never Land studded with impossible statutes.

The material offers something for everyone pirates, priestesses, and parricides. It manages to be by turns hilarious and sobering. And it is the source of (often sensational) fiction, lurking behind much of the best Latin poetry. Ovid, to take one example, wrote as he did because he had been through this System. The entertainment/information quotient on law and myth may be large, but it is all in service of the appreciation of the formal structure of the Latin language at something like its furthest stretch, aiming for the instant witty barb and the endlessly interactive sentence.

Requirements and Grading:

The grade will be based on two midterms (20% each), a final exam (35%), and daily class preparation, including periodic quizzes (25%). Conversion of final averages to letter grades will depend on the distribution of averages. This is likely to produce approximately the same results as the standard scale (i.e. 90-100 = A, etc.), but this result is not certain. Grades are not affected by any of the following: your grades in other classes; your status as a classics major (or not); what grade you want for graduate school admission, scholarship, academic standing or other reason.

There will be no make-up work without documentation of serious medical or other emergency. Over-sleeping never counts as an emergency, medical or otherwise.

Standard UT Austin policies on academic dishonesty (http://www.utexas.edu/depts/ dos/sjs/academicintegrity.html) apply to this course. The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities (http://www.utexas.edu/depts/dos/ssd/index.html). For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY.

Standard weekly pattern:

Monday: grammar lecture; translate

Tuesday: translate

Wednesday: translate

Thursday: sight-reading

Friday: quiz; translate

Week of Aug. 28

Sept. 1: no quiz

Week of Sept. 4

Relative pronouns

Relative prounouns

Sept. 4: no class

Week of Sept. 11

Participles

Declension of regular nouns

Week of Sept. 18

Indirect statement

Infinitives

Week of Sept. 25

Ablative Absolute

First and second conjugation

Sept. 29: Exam

Week of Oct. 2

Conditionals

Third, third -io, and fourth conjugation

Week of Oct. 9

Purpose and result clauses

Perfect tenses

Week of Oct. 16

Indirect question

Adjectives

Oct. 20: quiz only

Week of Oct. 23

Time and space I (cases)

Sum, fero, eo, volo, etc.

Week of Oct. 30

Time and space II (clauses)

No forms

Nov. 3: Exam

Week of Nov. 6

No topic

No forms

Nov. 9: no class

Nov. 10: quiz only

Week of Nov. 13

Reflexives

Reflexives

Week of Nov. 20

No topic

No forms

Nov. 23: no class

Nov. 24: no class, no quiz

Week of Nov. 27

Gerund and gerundive

No forms

Week of Dec. 4

No topic

No forms