Let’s Chunk or How to Recognize Units of Meaning in Latin by Pre-Reading

Chunk. An ugly sounding word but an essential process. You may not realize it but you’re doing it… right… now!

“to chunk”: to group together (connected items or words) so that they can be stored or processed as single concepts.

In language classes, we can engage in pre-reading, or using symbols to represent visually on the page the mental “chunking” that we make when we read every sentence (in any language). Pre-reading helps us see how associations between words build into chunks and from there to phrases and then clauses and then sentences.

Pre-Reading Annotations

Use     arches     to mark associations.

Use an underline to mark adjectives.

Use an   angle    to show dependency. e.g., ambulāre possum.

Use (   parentheses   ) to show delineate prepositional phrases.

Use      arrows     to show limiting relationships like genitives & adjectives; e.g., magna mater.

Use | bars | to delineate subordinate clauses.

Use  squares  to mark coordinating structures. e.g., et … et … ; cum … tum …; magis quam.

Use a squiggly line to mark objects.

Use a double underline to mark verbs.

Use a triple underline to mark absolute constructions.

You can (but need not) use a small “s” to mark nomina subiecta (i.e., subjects)

Let’s pre-read the first few sentences of Cicero’s First Catilinarian.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientiā nostrā? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? (quem ad finem) sese effrenata iactabit audacia? Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?

Now let’s pre-read the first few lines of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas

corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)

adspirate meis primaque (ab origine mundi)

(ad mea perpetuum) deducite (tempora carmen)!