Latin Grammar Nouns

Nouns

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 statue soldiers horses Julius Caesar (vas) (statua) (milites) (equi) ( 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.

“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 - Dad saw the dog. subject d.o. verb (Here, the emphasis is on dad)

II. canem pater vidit. - Dad saw the dog d.o. subject verb (Here, the focus of the sentence is what dad saw, the dog)

III. vidit pater canem - Dad saw the dog verb subject d.o. (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} )

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 2nd Declension 3rd Declension villa, villae – house servus, servi – servant, slave 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**

Latin Nouns – Nominative (subject) and Accusative (d.o.) cases (with sample sentences)

CASE How to 1st Declension 2nd Declension 3rd Declension spot it in (or “family”) (or “family”) (or “family”) Latin sing: puella sing: servus sing: leo, mercator Nominative Can come first in a sentence, (subject) but for affect plur: puellae plur: servi plur: leones, mercatores sometimes comes at the end

Accusative The Latin D.O. usually comes sing: puellam sing: servum sing:leonem, mercatorem (direct right before the object) verb (near the plur: puellas plur: servos plur: leones, mercatores end of the sentence), but not always.

Examples of the Latin Cases used in sentences Nominative: Accusative: 1st Declension: 1st Declension singular: puella in via ambulat singular: pater puellam vocavit (The girl is walking in the street) (Father called out to the girl)

plural: puellae in atrio stant plural: coquus puellas vidit (The girls are standing in the atrium) (The cook saw the girls)

2nd Declension: 2nd Declension singular: servus in culina laborat. singular: mercator servum vendit (The slave works in the kitchen) (The merchant sold a slave)

plural: servi in horto dormiunt plural: mercator servos vendit (The slaves are sleeping in the garden). (The merchant sold slaves)

3rd Declension: 3rd Declension singular: leo gladiatorem necavit singular: faber mercatorem salutavit (The lion killed the gladiator) (The craftsman greeted the merchant)

plural: leones cibum optimum cenaverunt plural: faber mercatores salutavit (The lions dined on the best food) (The craftsman greeted the merchants)