Cāsūs · Prīma Dēclīnātiō

35. Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, and Participles are declined in two Numbers — singular and plural — and in six Cases — nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative.

a. The Nominative is the case of the Subject of a sentence.

b. The Genitive may generally be translated by the English Possessive, or by the Objective with the preposition of.

c. The Dative is the case of the Indirect Object (§ 274). It may usually be translated by the Objective with the preposition to or for.

d. The Accusative is the case of the Direct Object of a verb (§ 274). It is used also with many of the prepositions.

e. The Ablative may usually be translated by the Objective with from, by, with, in, or at. It is often used with prepositions.

f. The Vocative is the case of Direct Address.

g. All the cases, except the nominative and vocative, are used as object-cases; and are sometimes called Oblique Cases (cāsūs oblīquī).

h. In names of towns and a few other words appear traces of another case (the Locative), denoting the place where: as Rōmae, at Rome; rūrī, in the country.

36. Declension is produced by adding terminations originally significant to different forms of stems, vowel or consonant. The various phonetic corruptions in the language have given rise to the several declensions. Most of the case-endings, as given in Latin, contain also the final letter of the stem.

Adjectives are, in general, declined like nouns, and are etymologically to be classed with them; but they have several peculiarities of inflection (see § 109 ff.).

37. Nouns are inflected in five Declensions, distinguished by the final letter (characteristic) of the Stem, and by the case-ending of the Genitive Singular.

38. The following are General Rules of Declension:

a. The Vocative is always the same as the Nominative, except in the singular of nouns and adjectives in -us of the second declension, which have -e in the vocative.

b. In neuters the Nominative and Accusative are always alike, and in the plural end in -a.

c. The Accusative singular of all masculines and feminines ends in -m; the Accusative plural in -s.

d. In the last three declensions (and in a few cases in the others) the Dative singular ends in -ī.

e. The Dative and Ablative plural are always alike.

f. The Genitive plural always ends in -um.

g. Final -ī, -ō, -ū of inflection are always long; final -a is short, except in the Ablative singular of the first declension; final -e is long in the first and fifth declensions, short in the second and third. Final -īs and -ūs are long in plural cases.

39. The regular case-endings of the several declensions are the following:

40. The Stem of nouns of the First Declension ends in ā-. The Nominative ending is -a (the stem-vowel shortened), except in Greek nouns.

41. Latin nouns of the First Declension are thus declined:

42. Nouns of the first declension are Feminine.

Exceptions: Nouns masculine from their signification: as nauta, sailor. So a few family or personal names: as Mūrēna, Dolabella, Scaevola; also Hadria, the Adriatic.

a. The genitive singular anciently ended in -āī (dissyllabic), which is occasionally found: as aulāī. The same ending sometimes occurs in the dative, but only as a diphthong.

b. An old genitive in -ās is preserved in the word familiās, often used in the combinations pater (māter, fīlius, fīlia) familiās — father, etc., of a family (plur. patrēs familiās or familiārum).

c. The Locative form for the singular ends in -ae; for the plural in -īs: as Rōmae, at Rome; Athēnīs, at Athens.

d. The genitive plural is sometimes found in -um instead of -ārum, especially in Greek patronymics (as Aeneadum, sons of Aeneas) and in compounds with -cola and -gena, signifying dwelling and descent: as caelicolum, celestials; Trōiugenum, sons of Troy; so also in the Greek nouns amphora and drachma.

e. The dative and ablative plural of dea, goddess, and fīlia, daughter, end in an older form -ābus (deābus, fīliābus) to distinguish them from the corresponding cases of deus, god, and fīlius, son (deīs, fīliīs). So rarely with other words, as līberta, freed-woman; mūla, she-mule; equa, mare. But, except when the two sexes are mentioned together (as in formulas, documents, etc.), the form in -īs is preferred in all but dea and fīlia.

44. Many nouns of the First Declension borrowed from the Greek are entirely Latinized (as aula, court); but others retain traces of their Greek case-forms in the singular.

There are (besides proper names) about thirty-five of these words, several being names of plants or arts: as crambē, cabbage; mūsicē, music. Most have also regular Latin forms: as comēta; but the nominative sometimes has the a long.

a. Greek forms are found only in the singular; the plural, when it occurs, is regular: as comētae, -ārum, etc.

b. Many Greek nouns vary between the first, the second, and the third declensions: as Boōtae (genitive of Boōtēs, -is), Thūcydidās (accusative plural of Thūcydidēs, -is). See § 52. a and § 81.