The first declension consists primarily of feminine nouns, with a few masculines. It is characterized by the recurrence of the letter alpha, and for this reason it is often referred to as the alpha declension, although the alpha was often changed to eta in the Attic dialect.
Are all first declension nouns feminine?
Gender: Nouns of the first declension are overwhelmingly feminine. A very few nouns in the first declension are masculine: 1) Some natural genders such as agricola (farmer), nauta (sailor), pīrāta (pirate), poēta (poet), scrība (scribe or clerk).
What are the 5 declensions in Latin?
What Are the Latin declensions?
- Nominative = subjects,
- Vocative = function for calling, questioning,
- Accusative = direct objects,
- Genitive = possessive nouns,
- Dative = indirect objects,
- Ablative = prepositional objects.
What are the six cases in Latin?
The six cases of nouns
- Nominative.
- Vocative.
- Accusative.
- Genitive.
- Dative.
- Ablative.
What are the 6 cases in Latin?
Here are some reflections on how cases in general relate to meaning in a sentence. There are 6 distinct cases in Latin: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and Vocative; and there are vestiges of a seventh, the Locative.
What does ablative mean in Latin?
Ablative of place from which describes active motion away from a place. Nouns, either proper or common, are almost always used in this sense with accompanying prepositions ab/ā/abs, “from”; ex/ē, “out of”; or dē, “down from”.
What is first second and third declension in Greek?
Almost all Greek nouns belong to one of three INFLECTION patterns, called the FIRST DECLENSION, SECOND DECLENSION, and THIRD DECLENSION. Each represents a particular set of CASE ENDINGS for gender, number, and case. So far, we have encountered only THIRD DECLENSION nouns.
What is first and second declension in Greek?
The second declension, in contrast to the first, consists primarily of masculine and neuter nouns. It is occasionally referred to as the ο-declension, because of the recurrence of the vowel omicron. … As in the first declension, the declension remains identical in the nominative, vocative, and accusative of the dual.
How do you decline in Greek?
To decline a second-declension noun, we take the ending in the table and add it to the stem (which always ends in -ο). If a vowel is underlined, then we replace the ο in the stem with that vowel.
What is first and second declension?
1st declension nouns are (almost always) feminine in gender. 2nd declension nouns are masculine or neuter. Again, the gender is arbitrary, but the declension patterns are associated with certain grammatical genders. Adjectives, however, have no inherent gender.
What is the genitive plural ending of 1st declension?
Latin words of the first declension have an invariable stem and are generally of feminine gender. … The nominative singular form consists of the stem and the suffix -a, and the genitive singular form is the stem plus -ae. There is a small category of masculine exceptions, which generally refer to occupations.
What is the ending for the genitive singular of all 1st declension nouns?
First Declension: Masculine Nouns
In such instances, two changes occur: The NOMINATIVE SINGULAR adds –ς. The GENITIVE SINGULAR uses the masculine –ου ending.
What is the vocative case in Latin?
The vocative case is used to give a direct address. This can be an order, request, announcement, or something else. This case is often used with the imperative mood, which is used to give an order/command. The word in vocative case is the person being addressed.
What is ablative case in Latin?
The ablative case shows the point of time when something happens or the time frame within which it happens. Although several ablative uses require a preposition, these time expressions don’t.
What is the nominative case in Latin?
In Latin (and many other languages) the Nominative Case (cāsus nōminātīvus) is the subject case. There is nothing very tricky about it—that simply means that the Nominative form is what is used in a given sentence as a subject.
Which language has the most cases?
Hungarian has the highest amount of cases than any language with 18 grammatical cases.
How is Latin structured?
But, although Latin word order can be very flexible, typical Latin word order generally follows the pattern Subject- Object-Verb (SOV). English word order is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). … The sentences will mirror English word order (SVO).
What gender is dies in Latin?
Gender: All 5th declension nouns are feminine, except dies, and compounds of dies, which are masculine. Dies, however, can also be feminine when it refers to a specific day: constitūtā diē, on the appointed day.
Are Latin endings?
Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood. … These different endings are called “cases”.
What is an example of a declension?
Declension (other than for number) becomes most obvious in English when looking at pronouns. For example, in a sentence saying that a ball belongs to a male person, with the ball in subject position, there is declension for case (possessive) and gender. The form of the pronoun, then, would be ”his”: The ball was his.