In the second, it is the direct object and plural. In the first sentence, 'delay' is the subject and singular. For instance, consider the following sentences: The first thing you may want to consider is that there are six different cases that a noun can decline into, and each case consists of a singular and plural form. These forms specifically are the nominative singular and genitive singular forms. These two forms tell you exactly what declension the noun is in so that you can discover the rest of the forms assuming you know the rules for declining nouns.

For example, you may find this in a dictionary: In a typical dictionary, two forms of a noun are given along with its gender. Declining Nounsįor now, we will only discuss the first two declensions when actually determining the ending. Because of declensions, we can know that the two words Mora and Fabula have similar ending patterns when we decline them. The endings for this declension center around 'e'. The fifth declension deals primarily with feminine nouns, though it rarely includes masculine nouns. The fourth declension is like the third in that all genders are accounted for, but there aren't many fourth declension nouns. The endings in the third declension mostly follow 'i'. The third declension is what most nouns fall under, and all three genders are included into this class. The endings for these nouns mostly follow 'o'. The second declension, in contrast to the first, doesn't really contain any feminine nouns and deals mostly with the other two genders. The only masculine nouns in the first declension are those of job positions, like farmer or sailor. The first declension is comprised mostly of feminine nouns and deals a lot with the letter 'a' as an ending. Here is a brief description on each declension: Thus, there are five different ways nouns can be declined (though a noun only fits under one declension).Įach declension is unique in the way nouns under them are declined. These categories are called declensions because when you determine all the possible endings of a noun, it is called declining the noun. Other than gender, there are five types of nouns that are categorized under five different declensions. This is especially evident in the neuter gender as it is quite different from the other two. This is important because depending on the gender, the noun may use endings different than normal. Each noun can be one of three genders, masculine, feminine, or neuter (though some words can be more than one gender, this is rare). Latin also has these three genders manifested in nouns and adjectives. Latin is the same way, but it is more specific. Finally, there is a third gender commonly thought to be a neutral kind of thing, for instance 'it'. For instance, we tend to associate the name 'Joseph' as a boy name. Some things, even when speaking in English, seem to be more related to the male gender than to the female gender, and vice versa. There are three typical genders to consider in all that we speak: masculine, feminine, and neuter. What are the endings and what are they used for? Noun Genders Thus this will be the focus of the study of nouns in Latin. The sentence in fact translates to 'The farmer saw the other farmer.' That is because both of these words refer to some farmer, but their roles are different since they have different endings. You see that two words appear highly similar: 'agricola' and 'agricolam'. Thus, the nouns in Latin may have different endings yet be the same word. Topics in this lesson include:Īs we know, Latin is an inflected language, so the role of a word in Latin is determined by its ending, a little different from English. I will also give a few words to expose you to Latin words. In this, we will investigate what a noun looks like and how it may function in a sentence. The first topic at hand will be the idea of Latin nouns.

Nominative latin endings