YEEESSS!!!
tertia schola: nomina
Y'all (should) all know that a noun names a person, place, thing, idea, or event. The word
noun comes from the Latin word
nomen, meaning
name. The word order tells you what part of speech the noun. To make it a possessive you usually add 's or sometimes just '. In Latin we use declensions. The base of the word almost always sounds the same while the ending changes. Each part of an inflected noun is called a case. Each case is defined as follows: (Most may already know this.)
Nominative: The subject of the sentence.
Genitive: Possession.
Dative: An indirect object.
Accusative: A direct object.
Ablative: The adverbial case. This case is used for ideas such as by what means, by whom, with whom, how, where, from where, and when. An adverb is not always used to tell any of these so it usually understood from text. If it is not obvious we use words such as
ab-by, from,
c**-with,
de and
ex-from, or
in-in, on.
Vocative: Noun of direct address.
DecliningWe decline nouns the same way we conjugate verbs: drop the ending to get the stem then add each ending for the different part of speech. There are five declensions in Latin. We will be working on the first declension in this lesson. In a dictionary, you will always find the nominative and genitive singular cases of the word so you can tell what declension it is in. (Some dictionaries add a number for beginners.) The genitive singular is the one that tells which declension the noun is in. It is always the same for each word in each declension.
i.e.
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th-ae -i -is -us -eiThe first declension is regular in its endings. Every word always ends with the same letters in each case.
S/PNom. -a/-aeGen. -ae/-arumDat. -ae/-isAcc. -am/-asAbl. -a/-isVoc. -a/-aeY'all might notice that some of the cases have the same endings. You can usually tell which is meant by context. The model nouns for the first declension are
terra-land and
porta-gate. The vocative is unimportant so I'll leave it out.
terra, terrae-land, earth
Singularterra-the land
terrae-of the land/the land's
terrae-to or for the land
terram-the land
terra-by/with/from the land
Pluralterrae-the lands
terrarum-of the lands/the lands'
terris-to or for the lands
terras-the lands
terris-by/with/from the lands
porta, portae-gate
Singularporta-the gate
portae-of the gate/the gate's
portae-to or for the gate
portam-the gate
porta-by/with/from the gate
Pluralportae-the gates
portarum-of the gates/the gates'
portis-to or for the gates
[portas-the gates
portis-by/with/from the gates
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