Latin Grammar
Nouns
1
Nouns – A Short Introduction
Well, we got through verbs with little difficulty. Now we come to nouns. You can’t have a
proper sentence without some nouns. But what ARE nouns anyway?
A Noun is any person, place or thing, either singular (one of them) or plural (more than
one of them). It is a word that names something !!
Can you think of some nouns in English. Sure you can!
The list almost writes itself
-
Alaska, puppy, senators, Molly, banana, computer, cars, girls,
wishbone, Tylenol, fingernail, tuna, shotgun, Italy, floors,
butter, Houdini, gyroscopes, stars, island, Pepsi, emperor,
etc..........
ALL THESE WORDS ARE NOUNS!!!!
Some Nouns......
vase
(vas)
statue
(statua)
soldiers
(milites)
horses
(equi)
Julius Caesar
( Iulius Caesar )
Noun Cases – What a noun’s job is in a sentence.
OK, so you know what nouns are. But knowing what they are is only part of it! You also have
to know what a noun is doing in a particular sentence, what it’s “grammatical function” is, in
order to make it work in the sentence.
Verbs always have the same function; they tell the action or state of being going on in the sentence.
Nouns, however, can have multiple functions in a sentence. You don’t believe us? OK, we’ll show you,
smarty-pants!
Noun Cases in English
Let’s check out a few examples below in English to prove our point. Let’s examine the word “dog”.
“The dog ate my shoes.”
–
In this sentence, the word “dog” is acting as the subject of the
sentence. A subject lets the reader know who or what is performing
the action of the verb. In English, the subject usually comes right
before the verb, at the beginning of the sentence.
Now let’s change the function of the word “dog” in a new sentence.
2
“I chased the dog.”
-
In this sentence, “dog” is no longer performing the action of the verb
(“chased”), so “dog” is no longer the subject of the sentence. In this
example “dog” is receiving the action of the verb (i.e. it is the dog
that is being chased, NOT the one who IS chasing). In this sentence,
“dog” is the direct object of the sentence. A direct object lets the
reader know who or what is receiving the action of the verb.
There are many different functions or cases that a noun can have in a sentence. You just saw two of
those functions used above; the subject and the direct object. There are 3 other often used
functions of nouns that we will look later on : possessives, indirect objects, and objects of
prepositions. For now, let’s just stick with these two basic noun functions; subject and direct
object.
Noun Cases in Latin
In Latin, nouns also have different jobs to do in a sentence. The can be subjects, direct or indirect objects,
objects of prepositions, and possessives – just like English nouns.
But English nouns are lazy compared to Latin nouns. As we saw in the above pages, English nouns don’t really
change their spelling when they change grammatical jobs (“dog” in English is spelled the same if it is the
subject of the sentence, or the direct object, or the object of a preposition – only when it is a possessive does
it add the “
„s “ or “ s‟ ”).
In Latin a noun changes its ending, or suffix, depending on what job (or grammatical function) it has in a
sentence. That means that unlike English, Latin sentences do not have to have a set word order! In Latin,
the subject could come at the end of the sentence. In Latin, you could put the direct object anywhere you
want! Because it’s the ending of the word, and not its place in a sentence, that gives a noun its function.
“Case” in the study of Latin refers to the different function (and thus different endings) that a noun can have
in a sentence.
Take the English sentence “Dad saw the dog” – we know that “dad” is the subject because the
word comes first in the sentence. We know “dog” is the direct object (or the “d.o.”) because that
word comes right after the verb “saw”. The placement or position of the words tells you their
grammatical function.
But if we turn that same sentence into Latin, we could write it out in a number of ways, because
it is word endings, not word order, that tells you a noun’s function in Latin. Look at the
examples below:
I.
pater canem vidit
II.
canem pater vidit.
subject d.o. verb
d.o.
III.
-
Dad saw the dog.
-
Dad saw the dog
subject verb
vidit pater canem
verb subject d.o.
(Here, the emphasis is on dad)
(Here, the focus of the sentence is what dad saw, the
dog)
-
Dad saw the dog
(Here the author draws your attention first to the act
of seeing, not to the person seeing {subject} or the thing
being seen {direct object} )
3
So Latin is much more flexible than English in its sentence
structure – those different endings or “suffixes” tell us what
the nouns’ functions are, so the word order can be changed for
dramatic emphasis!
Noun Declensions – What are they?
Unlike English, Latin divides its nouns into different categories, known as
declensions. Think of declensions as “families” : different types of nouns must
belong to different families. There are three (3) different declensions or
“families” we will look at this year - although there are a 4th and 5th
declension, although words that belong to them are much rarer
In order to read and understand Latin, you need to know the case
endings of nouns in all 3 declensions. Every noun changes its function
(case) endings based on what declension the noun belongs.
In all standard Latin-English dictionaries, nouns are always listed in two cases; the nominative
(subject) singular case followed by the genitive (possessive) singular case. The reason that
dictionaries give you these two cases for each noun is that this is how you can tell what
declension the noun belongs to (and thus which set of case endings it will use).
Below is a short list of some Latin nouns listed by the DECLENSION (or FAMILY) they belong to.
Each is listed by its NOMINATIVE SINGULAR form, followed by its GENITIVE SINGULAR form.
1st Declension
villa, villae – house
2nd Declension
servus, servi – servant, slave
3rd Declension
mercator, mercatoris - merchant
toga, togae – toga
amicus, amici - friend
canis, canis - dog
poeta, poetae – poet
nuntius, nuntii – messenger
leo, leonis – lion
agricola, agricolae – farmer
Quintus, Quinti – Quintus
senex, senis – old man
** It will be the genitive case form (specifically it’s suffix or ending) that
determines which family or declension the noun belongs to. We will
look at that in more detail later**
4
Latin Nouns
– Nominative (subject) and Accusative (d.o.) cases (with sample sentences)
CASE
How to
spot it in
Latin
Nominative
(subject)
Can come first
in a sentence,
but for affect
sometimes
comes at the end
Accusative
The Latin D.O.
usually comes
right before the
verb (near the
end of the
sentence), but
not always.
(direct
object)
1st Declension
(or “family”)
2nd Declension
(or “family”)
3rd Declension
(or “family”)
sing:
puella
sing:
servus
plur:
puellae
plur:
servi
plur: leones,
sing:
puellam
sing: servum
sing:leonem,
plur:
puellas
plur:
servos
sing:
plur:
leo, mercator
mercatores
mercatorem
leones, mercatores
Examples of the Latin Cases used in sentences
Nominative:
1st
singular:
Declension:
puella in via ambulat
Accusative:
1st Declension
singular: pater puellam vocavit
(The girl is walking in the street)
plural:
puellae in atrio stant
(Father called out to the girl)
plural:
(The girls are standing in the atrium)
2nd Declension:
singular: servus in culina laborat.
(The cook saw the girls)
2nd Declension
singular: mercator servum vendit
(The slave works in the kitchen)
plural:
servi in horto dormiunt
(The merchant sold a slave)
plural:
(The slaves are sleeping in the garden).
3rd Declension:
singular:
leo gladiatorem necavit
leones cibum optimum cenaverunt
(The lions dined on the best food)
mercator servos vendit
(The merchant sold slaves)
3rd Declension
singular: faber mercatorem salutavit
(The lion killed the gladiator)
plural:
coquus puellas vidit
(The craftsman greeted the merchant)
plural:
faber mercatores salutavit
(The craftsman greeted the merchants)
5