Introduction
Unlike English, Latin has a bit more of a complex structure when it comes to basic grammar points, such as nouns. However once mastered, these will make your latin so much stronger and thus you more confident. There are 6 noun cases; these are NOMINATIVE, VOCATIVE, ACCUSATIVE, GENITIVE, DATIVE & ABLATIVE. Each case has a different function in the sentence and more
importantly, different ‘endings’ at the end of the noun.
Firstly, it is important to understand that the nouns are split into different declensions. Each declension has its own gender (masculine, feminine or neuter), possibly more than one and with this different endings.
The First Decelension:
- feminine nouns only apart from with a few rare exceptions, which generally refer to professions such as ’nauta, nauta’ (sailor), ‘agricol, agricola’ (farmer), ‘auriga, aurigae‘ (charioteer), ’incola, incolae’ (inhabitant), ‘poet, poetae’ (Poet), ‘pirata, pirata‘ (pirate). The endings of the first declension go as follows:
Singular NOM
puell-a
VOC
puell-a
ACC
puell-am
GEN
puell-ae
DAT
puell-ae
ABL
puell-a
Plural NOM
puell-ae
VOC
puell-ae
ACC
puell-as
GEN
puell-arum
DAT
puell-is
ABL
puell-is
Use of the cases
Nominative
The 'Nominative' case is used for the subject of the sentence. A subject is a word that 'does' the verb, for example; the girl eats the apple. Here the word doing the verb is the girl because the boy is eating the apple. This can be singular, 'the girl' or plural, 'the girls'.
The Nominative with verbs to be can also be used in a different way; if you want to give a subject a role or more information- for example 'the girl is a poet', you would put both the girl and the poet into the nominative case.
eg. the girl is a poet
Vocative
This is used to address people, and is not the most commonly used case, in fact sometimes it is not even noted.
eg. dance, girl
salta, puella
Accusative
The ‘accusative‘ case of a noun isn the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. (a transitive verb is is a verb that accepts one or more object). It can also be used after prepositions.
eg. The girl eats dinner
Genitive
Generally translated by the English possessive, or by the objective with the preposition of.
eg. the daughter of the girl or the girl’s daughter
Dative
The ’dative’ case is used for an indirect object. Usually translated by the objective with the preposition to or for. It is also used after specific verbs such as appropinquo + dat, persuadeo + dat, etc (to learn more,
eg. The queen gave the land to the daughter.
Ablative
Used to show means, manner, place, and other circumstances. Usually translated as ‘from, by, with’. Can also be used after certain prepositions that take the ablative.
eg. The girl arrived from the shop.
