Latin Declension

• The Nominative Case , which is used to express the subject of a statement. It is also used with copulative verbs.


• The Vocative Case , which is used to address someone or something in direct speech. This case is indicated in English by punctuation, e.g. "Mary is going to the store" (Mary is nominative) compared to "Mary, are you going to the store?" (Mary is vocative) or "Mary!"


• The ; inflectively, by the suffix "-es" (or -se, when the stem ends in a vowel - e.g., who > whose, not "whoes"). This suffix, which is the same as the Latin suffix "-is," is typically abbreviated "-'s" (e.g., Paul > Paul's, not "Paules").


• The most commonly denote this case analytically.


• The Accusative Case , which expresses the direct object of a verb. In English, except for a small number of words which display a distinct accusative case (e.g., who > whom), the accusative and nominative cases are identical.


• The are most commonly used to indicate this case.


• The Locative Case , which is used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed. The locative case is extremely marginal in Latin, applying only to the names of cities and small islands and to a few other isolated words, and is identical to the genitive case (in the singular of the first and second declension) and the ablative case otherwise.

• The accusative is always identical to the nominative in the neuter (both singular and plural, across all declensions). In addition, the accusative is the same as the nominative in the plural of the third, fourth and fifth declensions (but note the alternative –īs accusative plural ending for i-stem nominals, different from nominative –ēs).


• The vocative is always identical to the nominative in the plural, and also in the singular except in the second declension and a few Greek nouns. For example, the vocative of Aeneās is Aenea, although Aeneās is first declension.


• The dative is always the same as the ablative in the plural, and in the singular in the second declension, the third-declension full i-stems i.e. neuter i-stems, adjectives), and fourth-declension neuters.


• The genitive singular is the same as the nominative plural in first-, second-declension, and fourth declension nouns that are not neuter.


• The dative singular is the same as the genitive singular in first- and fifth-declension nouns.


• Plural neuter nominative/accusative always ends in -a (with a few exceptions: demonstrative hic and related istic and illic, relative/interrogative quī and friends; in all of them, the neuter plural takes the same form as feminine singular nominative).


• The accusative singular ends in short vowel plus -m, except for a few neuters with unusual base forms.


• The accusative plural (assuming not neuter) ends in a long vowel plus -s; so does the nominative plural of the third, fourth and fifth declensions (again assuming not neuter).

The following alternate endings are also possible:

1. Accusative singular, –im, declined hostim


2. Ablative singular, –ī, declined hostī


3. Accusative plural, –īs, declined hostīs

        Example I (paradigma rēs - thing)

         Example II (paradigma diēs -
day )

• the nominatives are often irregular


• the dative singular ends in -ī: rather than -ae or -ō.


• the genitive singular ends in -īus rather than -ae or -ī.

These differences identify the "pronominal" declension, and a few adjectives also follow this pattern.

• Latin Conjugation