i-stem 3rd declension

[technmom]

First, I have a comment. I cannot understand why mare was chosen to decline in the quiz when it wasn't fully explained. I think it would have been better to have it as an exercise. But then I would also like to see better explanations in the text not just in the teacher's manual.

I still don't understand how to decline i-stems. I have a daughter using Henle and even from the LCII explanation in the teacher's manual thought that it was only the genitive plural that the i was added.

So I thought the declension of mare would be mare, maris, mari, mare, mare, mara, marium, maribus, mara, maribus.

The answer book has mare, maris, mari, mare, mari & maria, marium, maribus, maria, maribus.

Is the answer book correct and in general do all i-stem conjugations ad the i in places other than the genitive plural?
thanks

[jeremiah213]

Pat,

mare, maris was a poor choice indeed. The reason that mare has the "mari" form in the abl. sing., and the "maria" form in the nom and acc pl. is because mare is not only 3rd dec... not only -i stem but also...it's neuter which makes the declension party even wilder... but it is a kind of dec. and there are other words that fit into this category.

Glen