Chapter II –IV Nouns, Adjectives, and Prepositions
Nouns
All nouns have gender, number, and case. A dictionary entry for a noun looks like this:
puella –ae f girl
The f in the entry means that puella is a feminine word.
All nouns are grouped into declensions. There are five declensions. To determine which declension a noun is in, look at the dashed part of the dictionary entry. If it is –ae, the word belongs to the first declension. If it is –ī, then the word belongs to the second declension. If it is –is, then the word belongs to the third declension. If it is –ūs , the word belongs to the fourth declension. If it is –eī, then the word belongs to the fifth declension.
A declension tells the student what endings are assigned to each case. By knowing the case, a student knows how the word functions in the sentence (subject, object, etc).
Charts
Below is the chart for the cases with their functions.
1st 2nd
Singular
F M N
Nominative (Subject/Pred. Nom) puella amicus bellum
Genitive (possession) puellae amicī bellī
Dative (indirect object) puellae amicō bellō
Accusative (direct obj/obj of prep) puellam amicum bellum
Ablative (obj. of prep) puellā amicō bellō
Plural
Nominative (Subject/Pred. Nom) puellae amicī bella
Genitive (possession) puellārum amicōrum bellōrum
Dative (indirect object) puellīs amicīs bellīs
Accusative (direct obj/obj of prep) puellās amicōs bella
Ablative (obj. of prep) puellīs amicīs bellīs
Gender Difficulties
Words in the first declension are almost all feminine. Only six are masculine. We’ve had some so far: nauta, poeta, and agricola. Words in the second declension are either masculine (us or er words, like amicus or puer) or neuter (like bellum). A special rule to remember is that the nominative and accusative endings in the neuter are always the same. One will note that some endings repeat themselves. It is up to the translator to determine which one is being used according to the context of the sentence.
Adjectives
There are two types of adjectives: 1/2 and 3. The dictionary entry of an 1/2 adjective looks like this:
magnus – a –um great, large
In order to tell whether an adjective modifies a noun, the adjective must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case. For example, If I want to make magnus – a –um agree with rosās, I must first label the gender, number, and case of rosās (feminine, plural, accusative). Then I change the adjective according to that label. The feminine, plural, accusative ending is as, so the answer is magnās.
This can get tricky when you have words from the first declension that are masculine. For example, if I wanted to make magnus – a –um agree with poetae, the answer would be magnī because poetae is masculine, plural, nominative (even though it uses feminine endings).
Prepositions
The dictionary entry for prepositions looks like this:
cum + abl with
All Latin prepositions take either the accusative or ablative case. This means that the object of the preposition will be in one of these two cases. For example, cum dono means with the gift. Dono is in the ablative case. In mala bella means into the evil wars because bella mala is in the accusative case.