case confusion in "I love the queen's dog"

[Ahmesius]

Salvete everyone,
I am (very) new to Latin. I had a problem with the grammar of "I love the queen's dog". Should the queen be genitive or accusative? from one hand she owns the dog, but yet the "queen's dog" is the direct object and (from what I understand) the nouns should agree in case.
So, is it:
Amō Canem Reginam
or
Amō Canem Regine

Also, was I right about noun's being capitalized (like in German and some old modern English texts)?

Thanks in advance!

 

[QMF]

"Queen's", as in English, is not an adjective. (If it were you would be correct that it would agree in case.) In English it is called a possessive noun, in Latin it is called a genitive noun. In most cases, if there is possession, one uses the genitive. (Occasionally there is such a thing as a dative of possession, e.g. "nomen mihi Marcus est"="My name is Marcus.") As for "regine"-assuming you aren't using some odd ecclesiastical spelling with which I am not familiar, it should be "reginae" in the genitive singular.

And Latin technically has no capitals in texts. Essentially a writing would be either all capitals (common in inscriptions) or all lowercase.

Also, in a monotone-type speech, one generally does "Subject Object Verb" in Latin, and so you would most likely do "canem reginae amo." Putting amo at the beginning of the sentence makes you sound emphatic.

 

[Ahmesius]

Thanks a lot!
As to regine / reginae. I now first encounter a difference between British Latin (Which I began studying yesterday from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/beginners/default.htm) and "everyone else's Latin". Do you reckon I should find myself another tutorial, for Classical Latin, before I inflict irreparable damage?

Thanks again.

 

[QMF]

Indeed, based on 1086-1733 that's indeed ecclestiastical Latin, or rather based off of it. If you intend to be reading classical texts (Cicero, Vergil, Caesar, etc.) then I would find a place to learn Classical Latin. (I would recommend purchasing the Cambridge Latin Course, it's what I used. Very nice series.) If you intend to read these official documents from England's past, then stick to what you have.

 

[Andy]

I say a good basic introduction is what you need, you can find e-books on everything these days. I personally have studied all the Latin I know from e-books and this forum, so it's out there, just look for it.

I say you should begin with Classical before going on to medieval. It's, after all, the basics.

And to complement the Consul's post, the text of what you wanted to translate would have probably run in Latin as:

CANEM·REGINAE·AMO

 

[cinefactus]

As the others have noted, these are not only mediaeval spellings, but the grammar is also mediaeval. The pace of the course is also very quick. Whilst the subject matter is interesting, I think you would find it easier to learn using something a little slower in pace...

 

[Ahmesius]

Thanks for the advising,
I'll look for something else. It's not that I particularly want to read these or other texts, it's just a hobby that began recently when I wrote the abstract in some work about planetary nebulæ (in English, naturally). I had to use the word nebula in the genitive case, and pondered why we use the Latin nominative plural of the word, and yet are allowed to ignore other cases.
Being able to read Latin Vicipædia is a good enough level for me to aspire to right now.

 

[QMF]

I think we ignore the other cases in English because the only inflection of nouns that we have is with respect to plurals. Cf. cactus vs. cacti, octopus vs. octopodes (the actual plural of octopus )

 

[Ahmesius]

you exhibes great knowledge
Perhaps we have only one inflection, for plural, but cases obviously exist as they are a matter of syntax.
How would you say in English, using apostrophe s, "the simulations of the nebulae"? The nebuae's simulations? The nebuae' simulations? simulations nebularum?

It never occurred to me how much Latin there is in English before. And how funny it would sound if we used all cases and not just nominative plural... I wonder what non-Latin-liking Physicists would think about "The nebularum gas returns to the interstellar medio"

 

[Iynx]

I would point out that we do inflect certain pronouns, for example:

I my me mine
thou /you thy /your thee /you thine /yours
he /she /it his /her/ its him /her /it his /hers

we our us ours
ye /you your you yours
they their them theirs


who whose whom