Latin is an inflected language, and as such its nouns, pronouns, and adjectives must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. There are five declensions, which are numbered and grouped by ending and grammatical gender. For simple declension paradigms, visit the Wiktionary appendicies. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_first_declension , http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_second_declension , http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_third_declension , http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_fourth_declension , http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_fifth_declension

Grammatical cases

A complete declenation consists of seven grammatical cases:
*The nominative case (Latin CASVS NOMINATIVVS), which is used to express the subject of a statement. It is also used with copulative verbs.
*The genitive case (Latin CASVS GENETIVVS), which expresses possession, measurement, or source. In English, the gentive case is represented analytically by the preposition of; 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 dative case (Latin CASVS DATIVVS), which expresses the recipient of an action, the indirect object of a verb. In English, the prepositions to, from and for most commonly denote this case analytically.
*The accusative case (Latin CASVS ACCVSATIVVS), 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 vocative case (Latin CASVS VOCATIVVS), 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 ablative case (Latin CASVS ABLATIVVS), which expresses separation, indirection, or the means by which an action is performed. In English, the prepositions by, with, and from are most commonly used to indicate this case.
*The locative case (Latin CASVS LOCATIVVS), 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 first and second declension singular), the dative case (in the first and second declension plural and in the third declension) or the ablative case (fourth and fifth declension).

The sequence of the grammatical cases above is standard in North America, and in fact goes back to Byzantine grammarians originally writing about Greek. But the presentation NOM-VOC-ACC-GEN-DAT-ABL has been the usual order in Britain and many European and Commonwealth countries since the publication of Hall Kennedy's Latin Primer (1866). This order is argued to more closely reflect the tendencies of different cases to share similar endings.

In Polish language Latin learner texts, however, the most common order is NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC-ABL-VOC, which is a similar order to the one adopted for Modern Polish. Likewise, in German textbooks, the order NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC-VOC-ABL is used, to mirror the order of the four grammatical cases of Modern German (NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC). The same order is used in Italian textbooks (Italian has no grammatical cases).

However, Brazilian grammarian Napoleão Mendes uses the unusual sequence NOM-VOC-GEN-DAT-ABL-ACC.

Syncretic trends

Syncretism, where one form in a paradigm shares the ending of
another form in the paradigm, is common in Latin. The following are the most notable patterns of syncretism:

*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).

First declension (a)

Nouns of this declension usually end in –a and are typically feminine, for example 'road' (via, viae fem.) and 'water' (aqua, aquae fem.), with a few masculine exceptions, including 'farmer' (agricola, agricolae masc.) and 'sailor' (nauta, nautae masc.). The predominant letter in the ending forms of this declension is a. The nominative singular form consists of the stem and the affix -a, and the genitive singular form is the stem plus -ae.

References

* New Latin Grammar , an eBook, originally written by Charles Edwin Bennett at the Project Gutenberg

See also

* Latin conjugation

Category:Latin language