So I've been having a hard time with the dative case... with recognizing when to use it and when it is being used in passages and exercises. It's not coming as easily as the the cases we learned before and I'm not sure why... But let's see if I've had a break-through. (If at any time anyone reading this is getting confused, please stop reading! Because I think I've almost confused myself and I really don't want to be responsible for confusing others.)

I think you said today, Prof. Manolaraki, that you didn't want to really say that the dative and ablative cases look the same, but I think it might help me remember the suffixes if I can get this into my mind. Only the 1st declension dative singular looks like the genitive singular of the same declension. All the other datives look like the ablative of their same declension. Yes?

So I was trying to think of a way to tell which case is which. With the ablative case, there has to be a preposition in the text. An "ab" or an "ex" or a "cum" (et cetera) has to accompany the noun. Right? In the dative case, the preposition is implied, and a preposition does not appear explicitly in the text, yes?

For example:

Ambulat cum monstro forti. He walks with the strong monster.
"monstro forti" is in the ablative case, and the preposition in the sentence is "cum."

Dat canem monstro forti. He gives a dog to the strong monster.
"monstro forti" here is in the dative case, and the preposition "to" is implied, but does not explicitly appear in the sentence.

Is this correct? Or am I still getting it wrong? Or does the use of a preposition with the ablative and the implied preposition with the dative totally have nothing to do with one another and this is a bad way of trying to remember it?

I know I'm also having a problem assimilating all the neuter suffixes, but I think that this is just lack of practice rather than the grammar not clicking in my mind.


~Rachael