Latin 6: Cases and Declension

Word cases in Latin are critical to understanding even a basic sentence. So it's important to know what the cases are. Furthermore, for each case, a word's declension is different. So you must learn a word's root and also how its declensions work in which case.

It's easy to become overwhelmed by this list of cases and declensions. For that reason I have been utilizing the old book Latin By The Natural Method, since it introduces vocabulary little by little, without unloading the entirety of the semantics right off.

Here are the cases, according to Wheelock's Latin:

• Nominative Case
• Genitive Case
• Dative / Objective Case
• Accusative Case
• Ablative Case
• Vocative Case

Nominative Case

The Nominative case is what English speaks would called the subject of a sentence. From Wheelock's, "the Romans used the nominative case most commonly to indicate the subject of a finite verb."

Using the example word "gate", the Latin version of this word, nominative case, is:

porta

The idea of its usage is:

the (a) gate

Sidenote, "classical Latin had no words corresponding exactly to our definite article the or our indefinite article a, porta can be translated as gate or the gate or a gate" (Wheelock's).

Genitive Case

This is used "when one noun was used to modify another" (Wheelock's). I sometimes think of this as showing possession, but that may not be the only usage.

Here is an example of the word gate in the genitive form:

portae

And this can be thought of as:

of the gate

Dative Case

This case was used "to mark the person or thing indirectly affected by the action of the verb" (Wheelock's). The declension for gate looks like this:

portae

And an example idea would be:

to/for the gate

Accusative / Objective Case

I think that nominative and accusative are the most used for basic sentences. Accusative was used "to indicate the direct object of the action of the verb" (Wheelock's). Example declension:

portam

And an example idea:

the gate

So the word gate would be "porta" if it was the subject, and "portam" if it was the object.

Ablative Case

This case was used "by the Romans when they wished to modify, or limit, the verb by such ideas as means ('by what'), agent ('by whom'), accompaniment ('with whom'), manner ('how'), place ('where; from which'), time ('when or within which')" (Wheelock's). Here is the example declension:

porta

You'll notice its the same as the nominative :-)

But the idea it expresses is:

by/with/from, etc., the gate

Vocative Case

This is an interesting one, because the "Romans used the vocative case, sometimes with the interjection O, to address (vocare, to call) a person or thing directly" (Wheelock's). The declension, in this simple example, again looks familiar:

porta

The the idea being conveyed is:

O gate

Adding Salt to the Wound

If you are just learning about these declensions now, there is one more thing I want to mention. That is, the example declensions given were for the word "gate", singular, not plural. If you need to make the word plural, then the declensions change once more.

But this is a good starting point, at least being aware that a word can and will change depending on how it is used in a sentence.

Sources

Wheelocks. Wheelock's Latin. Frederic M. Wheelock. 6th Edition, Revised. 2005

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