Talk:Latin declension

There has been considerable discussion on the order of the cases in the tables. If you want to comment this further, please first consider the section Order of cases infra!JoergenB 14:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that the pronouns should not be in separate tables for the different genders, instead I think that they should be in one table. The colummns should be ordered Masculine, Feminine, then Neuter. This is the way I have seen it in every Latin textbook I have seen (3) and the way that every Latin teacher has taught it that I had.

Also, there are no locative endings for the first, second, and third declensions. It should be noted that all the nouns in a declension are not all of one gender.

Instrumental Case

I read in the *History of Latin* page that *Vestiges of the instrumental case may remain in adverbial forms ending in -ẽ*. I couldn't find any other information on it. Should it be included here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.72.36.129 (talk) 10:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Waaay too long

This article is very very long. It gives me a headache looking at it! I think it needs seperation, into different parts, maybe? In the mean time, lets put a Too long box on the front. Or not. The Wiggle Fish 11:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I've started to try chopping the article down by branching subsections off into new entries. Have managed only one so far; this is going to be a long, ugly process. Wombat1138 (talk) 11:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Update: I've radically trimmed down the First Declension section, on the theory that readers of this general article only want a quick overview and can refer to the Wiktionary appendix if needed. Guess I'll check back in a few days to see whether that's been reverted or if I should keep plowing through-- I do appreciate all the effort that previous editors have put into making the declension tables, but IMHO all of that info ends up being cumulatively overwhelming for a single article. Wombat1138 (talk) 11:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

T-V Distinction

Is there really a T-V distinction in the Latin? Until someone provides evidence that there is, I shall edit away that part claiming there is a T-V distinction--Darthanakin 11:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Second declension

"There are several small groups of feminine exceptions, including names of gemstones, plants, trees, and some towns and cities." And some neuters as well (vulgus, virus, pelagus; with accusative in -us).2A02:A444:10D6:1:1151:8A5D:9C5E:106C (talk) 12:17, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Third declension

The third declension needs to be cleaned up a bit. The possible endings should be re-worded and there should be some explanation why the stem of nomen becomes nomin– when adding an ending.—Kbolino 04:36, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

is/ea/id

Isn't is/ea/id the third declension personal pronoun, and not a demonstrative? 03:52, 8 January 2006 Pedxing585

Latin didn't really have one set of forms that were the 3rd. person pronouns (except for the reflexives se, sui, sibi etc.). Is, ea, id was a relatively weak/vague demonstrative, which could also be used in 3rd person pronominal reference if you didn't have any particular reason to use forms with a more specific meaning. AnonMoos 10:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

actually, yes, is, ea id... IS in fact a 3rd declension personal pronoun, and not a demonstrative pronoun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sillysally0 (talk • contribs) 12:32, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Surely not. is is a demonstrative adjective, just like hic, ille, and iste. All of these can of course also be used as pronouns. Kanjuzi (talk) 07:04, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

reflexive pronouns

By the way, the reflexives se, sui, sibi etc. aren't included in the article. AnonMoos 10:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

scortum (neuter), whore

Who is up for changing this? Could something else maybe, just maybe, be declined(!) I'll just change this back to the way it was.

Possessive translation of the genitive

I have removed the possessive translation of the genitive cases, because although it is correct in most cases, the "of …" translation is correct in all cases. This is also to avoid confusion with the possessive pronoun (mine, yours, its, his, hers, ours, theirs, …).—Kbolino 21:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Fixing tables

I am in the middle of cleaning up the tables, I prefer them to all follow the same pattern, i.e. no colors and also the same headings and stuff. That just makes it easier to read. So I'm going to bed now, but I'll go to fix that later. Plus, there are some errors in the latin translations (like vocative with an exclamation point) that need to be revised. J. Finkelstein 04:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

• while you are at it, remove the nonexistant locative forms on the tables.

Greek declension

Should we add Greek declensions?

Order of cases

In my school in the US we used the Oxford Latin course (second edition). The back cover says, "For the North American edition the order of declensions has been changed to correspond to customary US usage..." This is NGDAccAbl and differs from the order used in the UK, thus explaining the confusion among English speakers of various backgrounds. Hopefully this will shed some light on why the order here may differ from the order used in the Latin text you used at school (esp if you are from one of the countries that uses the same order as North America).

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.83.240.204 (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I changed it all to the NVAGDA ordering, as it was half one way and half the other, which is far worse than a particular random choice of order. I apologize if that was the "wrong" ordering. Feel free to change it, but do it all. 24.205.91.162 01:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Since this discussion pops up now and then, I've taken the liberty to move some older and newer comments here (some of which were deleted by others than the contributors, without references to archiving), in time order.--JoergenB 14:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

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Learning Latin and Greek and German at school, the order of cases was always Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative -- as per the reference grammars we used (eg Kennedy's Latin Primer, first published in the 19th Century).

Where does the order Nom/Gen/Dat/Acc/Abl that Wikipedia uses come from? Is it an American thing? Jheald 11:59, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Further looking up with Google finds that the Wikipedia order goes back to Byzantine grammarians originally writing about Greek. NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC is also the normal presentation of the cases in German in German language texts. But in the UK, the order Nom-Voc-Acc-Gen-Dat-Abl became standard with the introduction of Kennedy's Latin Primer as the standard Latin teaching grammar in the country's top seven Public Schools in 1866 [1].

Courses in the UK for teaching other languages subsequently followed this lead. Kennedy's order is still the standard in the UK, and in countries using UK-originated textbooks. Some possible advantages for Kennedy's scheme are discussed in a Yahoo post here [2]. Jheald 14:41, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Things that I don't get is the order of cases (usually it's Nominative, Genitive, ...) and why is vocative capitalized. (Unsigned contribution 09:31, 2 October 2005 from 81.15.146.91.)

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Someone mentioned the order of cases earlier: when I learnt from "The Approach to Latin" it was Nom-Voc-Acc-Gen-Dat-Abl; Locative was only mentioned as needed. This is also the order in Jacques Brel's song "Rosa". "A New Approach to Latin" omitted the vocative, which made me hate it. jnestorius^(talk) 17:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

That would make sense; it's the standard ordering that the cases are taught in France (and presumably Belgium), as well as the UK and the Commonwealth. -- Jheald 22:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC).

Well, for me NGDAcVAb makes far more sense, but that's probably because it's closer to German and because I was taught that way. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 21:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It is so much easier to trot off the cases in NVAGDA order. Also with this order there is a handypoem:

The subject goes in the nominative.
The vocative is for addressing.
The object goes in the accusative.
The genitive is for possessing.
The dative can mean to or for,
And don't forget there is one more -
For by or from or in or with,
The Romans used the ablative!

If there were a technical way of having them both and switching between them, would that be a good idea? RupertMillard (Talk) 09:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

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For declensions 1, 2, and 3 somebody messed up the order so that it goes Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, and then Ablative. This is not the right order. It should go Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and then Vocative. Somebody should change it to the right way. (Unsigned contribution 04:42, 22 November 2006 from 24.136.28.32.)

Supra, Jheald has made out arguments for both orderings. NGDAccAblV is the traditional way (and the way e. g. my Latin grammar in Swedish uses). I do not know what the original reasons for this order were. The order NVAccGDAbl is more 'natural', in the sense that forms that often coincide are grouped together, and I would guess this was Kennedy's reason for adopting it. (E.g., the vocative often coincides with the nominative. So does the accusative; and, moreover, every time the accusative coincides with the nominative, then so does the vocative. Dative and ablative are never distinguished in plural, et cetera.) RupertMillard's idea of having a switch between both orders is interesting; but judging the feasibility of an implementation is beyond me. Else, I suppose the order dominating in Latin grammars in English should be decisive in en:wiki, and the order changed by hand as needed in other wikis.--JoergenB 15:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

An extra complication I've just noted: There are five appendices in wictionary, for the five declensions; and links to them from this article. In these appendices, the traditional order NGDAccAblV is employed, not the Kennedy natural order.--JoergenB 18:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

In the texts I've used to study Latin, two used the NGDAccABLV order, and one used the NAccGDAbl. I think the difference may be American vs. European: the first two were both American, while the third was Dutch. I agree that it doesn't matter much, but it can be confusing when the order's not what you're used to. 69.116.89.12 (talk) 22:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a lot of discussion just to figure out the order of the cases. I agree that the order should be uniform of on one page but as long as they are clearly labled in each box then I don't see the need to argue over what the right order is. There really isn't a right order which is why grammar book and primers take to putting them in any order what so ever. When I learned Latin we first learned to speak using the nomnative and accusitive only before we ever got to open our books. --Billiot 00:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I personally prefer the No-Ge-Da-Ac-Ab order, mostly because it matches the order used on Ancient Greek grammar, German grammar and Polish language. (It doesn't entirely match the order on Russian grammar, although the Russian version of the page does, so maybe the English version is wrong. Finnish grammar partially matches but the other cases get in the way and the allative does what the dative does, but is located lower. Same goes for Skolt Sami.) I consider sticking to the same order as the Ancient Greek grammar article especially important, because the shared etymology of the forms. If the order of the cases is the same it's much easier for a reader to view them side-by-side. Also, all reference material I've ever seen gives the genitive to determine the stem, so it's nice to have that one on the second row. Some proponents of other orderings have argued that they put derived forms close together, but this ordering does that too, to some extent, and in any case you'll see that the Nom/Acc are identical even when they're not next to each other, so the benefit would be really limited. As for what the ‘most natural’ order is, well who decides that? It's totally subjective. The existence of cute poems is likewise irrelevant. Firstly, the poem is for memorizing what the cases are for, rather than the order (nobody needs help memorizing the order of five cases) and secondly, it's just a mnemonic poem, it has zero import on our preferred order. Anyway, if we want to accommodate people who are used to other orderings, we could do something like this:

Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Abl

But it would be quite a chore to do this for all tables individually. Templating would solve that, but we will not want to accommodate all possible orders, so perhaps user scripting would be a better solution. As a final note, I would prefer not to include the trivial vocatives and locatives, for reasons of clarity. Shinobu (talk) 14:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

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Having studied from several different latin text books over the years (in the UK), I have only ever encountered the NVAccGDAbl order of cases and initially found the order as recorded here rather confusing. Furthermore, no latin dictionary I've ever come across has deviated from the NVAccGDAbl order and everyone i've spoken to, including those who studied latin at a university level, has said that this is the only order used anymore. Additionally, as the two most common beginners' latin courses I've encountered (the Cambridge and the Oxford) both use the NVAccGDAbl order, it seems counterintuitive that wikipedia would confuse the issue by publishing a variant. Is there a strong consensus to maintain the NGDAccAbl? 79.70.79.206 (talk) 19:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I just read through the discussion above, and I don't know why we have continued to use NomGenDatAccAblVoc, when the arguments seem in favour of NomVocAccGenDatAbl - more people learn it that way, Kennedy uses it, it groups together cases that have a similar purpose (I cannot fathom why the subject is at the top and the object in the middle - how could this possibly make sense to the casual learner?), and I'll add another one - someone looking up these tables will not see the Nominative and Vocative together and notice that they are, in all but one declension, exactly the same, which also makes it easier to stick in the mind (obviously we're not writing this article for revision purposes, but it should be assumed that a person looking up this article is interested in learning them, no?). The current version seems to be stricter limited to North America whereas the Kennedy version has a much more international flavour and wider audience. I am happy to rewrite every single table myself - does anyone object to this? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Support. I'm also in favour of altering the Attic Greek article to the NomVocAccGenDatAbl order too. InfernoXV 14:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. I think NomGenDatAccAblVoc is more widely used internationally, corresponds better with the tradional case order of several other languages, and I don't think that Kennedy's order offers substantial benefits, etc. This is discussed above, in Talk:Latin declension#Order_of_cases, which, if you had read it, would have shown you that there is no consensus for a change from the traditional order. Shinobu (talk) 12:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Please let's continue the discussion at Talk:Latin declension#Order_of_cases, shall we? Keep related discussion together. Shinobu (talk) 12:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm in favor of taking advantage of syncretism at ever opportunity! It's ridiculous to stay with a confusing order of cases just because it's traditional and still in use in some places. Nom/Acc/Gen/Dat/Abl makes sense not only in Latin but also in German and Russian. Adding an extra line for vocative when it only differs from the nominative in one instance is also silly and makes these declension tables more intimidating than they need to be (and locative should be left out entirely except as footnotes where necessary). In both Latin and Russian (with the prepositional case between genitive and dative, and ablative called instrumental) and to a lesser extent in German, the masculine and neuter genders are also very similar in declension, so I would further shrink these tables by combining masculine with neuter and only add the neuter endings next to the nominative and accusative masculines.

So from a bad order and redundant duplication we go from six lines and six columns (m/f/n and singular/plural) to a sensible order in five lines and four columns, shrinking the tables by nearly fifty percent with no loss of information, indeed with information added by revealing where endings coincide. Try it and see.

By the way, many German and Russian textbooks have been doing exactly this for years, so it's not all that revolutionary. If I find the time I may try editing the tables in some of these articles.

Another thing that's always bothered me is the tradition of always including -a, -um after the masculine of first and second declension adjectives, as if anyone but a new student in the first week of Latin 101 wouldn't know these are always there. I could live with just the -a to flag it visually as an adjective (the third declension would often require three endings, of course), but that -um is just dumb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whatssnoo (talk • contribs) 05:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The page still uses both mentioned orders in a disorganized way. I think that we should use the "NVAGDA" order. In any case we should decide on a consistent choice. Count Truthstein (talk) 13:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I have made this change. Another possible change is that the vocative row could be omitted where it is the same as the nominative, as suggested above. Count Truthstein (talk) 14:39, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I will add an argument in favor of listing the genitive second; because it is necessary, when citing third declension nouns, to list both the nominative and the genitive singular to properly identify the noun. Also, the genitive singular is distinctive for all declensions in Classical Latin, though there are other forms of that nature. The accusative, however, is not one of these; for example, the accusative singular is the same for third and fifth declension, and again for second and fourth declension. In addition, the genitive doesn't vary according to gender, as both the nominative and accusative do. That may not seem like much of an argument, but I think it's a valid one.

As for the order of the other cases, I believe Wheelock explains that as the order in which cases tend to show up in a sentence, unless particular nouns are being emphasised. Looking at the article on Latin Grammar, they do seem to match: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_grammar#Word_order

I can't comment on how sensible it is for other Languages. I'm used to the accusative coming second for German, but I can't think of any practical purpose this or any other order would serve for German specifically. And considering this is the article on Latin anyway, I'd have to say the order of cases for German or Greek or Russian was irrelevant. 108.196.52.89 (talk) 20:29, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Locative case

In latin does not exist a locative case except for domus rus et hums tha have a so called genitive locative, in the other nouns the locative is absorbed into the ablative. --Philx 02:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Putting 'locative' forms for such words as servus and rex is complete nonsence as they have no locative forms, the locative exists for cities, small islands and a few irregular nouns ie: domus, humus and militia. This is the kind of stupid error that gives wikipedia a reputation of innaccuracy.

I don't quite agree. It might be better to have a short section stating that there is a separate locative for domus, that it coincides with genitive for cities and small islands, and that (else and) in general ablativus (loci) is used as locative. It is also a mistake to claim that a case 'doesn't exist' because it coincides with others in form. (I'm a bit allergic to statements like 'Vocative only exists for nouns of the first and second declension', as I've sometimes read.)

At least, try to be consistent. Note that in the main article, latin is claimed to have seven cases, including locative.JoergenB 17:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Given Locative forms are totally incorrect, Ablative/Dative forms are 1:1 coppied in to Locative. Locative has never been equal to Ablative/Dative especially in Plural. The Locative case for regular nouns/adjecives must be removed. Roberts7 18:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Erikus Doctissimis Wikipedianis sal.

Ecce secundum illum veritatis fontem Wikipedia, latinitas nunc in omnibus nominibus casum amplectitur locativum. At wikipedia sese fallit namque non existit is. De constantia, Joergen, licet quaedam locativum habeant nomina tamen hoc factum nequaquam eo reductum est ut omnia eum habeant. Stephem Colbert, vir ille clarissimus videtur, saltem quatenus ad Latinitatem attineat, recte apteque de "wikiality" nos docuisse.

Scribebam iuxta Montellam 20 Mai. anno MMVII —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.190.41.53 (talk • contribs) 14:29, 20 May 2007.

I realise I may have been overzealous so far in what I perceive to be fighting vandalism. I'm going to step back now. However, I don't believe a consensus has yet been reached, and do believe the page should stay as it is until an agreement is found. I also don't believe posting in Latin on the English language Wikipedia to be helpful. Tbone762 14:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me put it like this: This locative thing is the Latin equivalent of saying that the plural of "moose" is "mooses" or the plural of "child" is "childs". How about putting that in the English language article! Hey while we're at it, let's have a make-believe Locative case for English words too! If we make it true in Latin than surely we can make it true in English! Do you really want that kind of stuff in your Encyclopedia? If you do, then Wikipedia has justly earned its reputation. And actually, part of me would prefer to see wikipedia make a fool out of itself (again).

We have one fellow, 'JeorgenB', who insists that the falsehoods be maintained for sake of consistency. Well sometimes languages aren't consistent. Example, English is said to have a plural but that does not imply that all nouns have a plural. English is said to have a passive voice but does that imply that all verbs have such a voice (eg. 'shall' 'may')? By the way Joergen we say in Latin it that it does not exist in most nouns because it does not eg: We can say:

                Nunc domi scribo.

or:

                Nunc humi inaugero.

but (for the most part) not

                Nunc arbore scribo.

because 'arbor' has no Locative. Instead:

                Nunc in arbore scribo.

And we most certainly would not say:

                Nunc puellà scribo

Rather:

                Nunc apud puellam scribo.

or:

                Nunc coram puellà scribo.

I think that the locative case should be noted on the article but we should only show a word like a City Name or Island that actually takes it. In this way we can note it and for each declention we can state to which other case it looks and be done with it but still have an article lacking in nothing.--Billiot 00:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Vocative case

There is some similarity between the 'incomplete cases' vocative and locative (supra), and I prefer a more conventional treatment of the former case, too. I've just corrected a table copy error of vocatives for some adjectives of the third declension. They would not have been there, if not the creator of the paradigm example tables had treated the vocative a bit less seriously, probably in his/her knowledge that anyhow it coincides with the nominative. I think the readers too would prefer just this information; perhaps stated in a couple of places; e.g. thus: "In all tables where no separate vocative is given, it coincides with the nominative"; together with the removal of unneccessary vocative lines.JoergenB 17:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think that vocative case should be removed from tables and presented as a 'form', i.e. peculiarity for words of single gender and declension, similarly to Locative. 37.192.250.101 (talk) 14:27, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Say...

I distinctly remember "mare" being its own declension. Anyone else? —Nightstallion (?) 10:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

No mare, maris is part of third declination neuter stem. --Philx 14:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It is? Well, we learned it separately. e-stem, IIRC. ::shrugs:: —Nightstallion (?) 08:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning up

I think the tables need to be removed and replaced or revised. The locative case is 99% of the time replaced with the accusative of place to (ad regem, to the king). I'd suggest using the NOM-GEN-DAT-ACC-ABL-VOC format. It seems to be the smoothest. I think the following could be included here. Maybe there should be a Latin Adjectives Topic.

1. First Declension

• First Declension regular
• First Declension Greek nouns

2. Second Declension

• Second Declension regular
• Second Declension -er nouns
• Second Declension Greek nouns

3. Third Declension

• Third Declension regular sexed
• Third Declension regular neuter
• Third Declension i-stems
  • Third Declension i-stem sexed
    • Third Declension pure i-stem sexed
  • Third Declension i-stem neuter

4. Fourth Declension

• Third Declension regular
• Third Declension neuter

5. Fifth Declension

• those like seriēs
• those like rēs

6. First and Second Declension adjectives

• First and Second Declension regular adjectives
• First and Second Declension –er adjectives
• First and Second Declension –īus genitive adjectives

7. Third Declension adjectives

• Third Declension 1 ending adjectives
• Third Declension 2 endings adjectives
• Third Declension 3 endings adjectives

8. Comparison and Superlatives

• How they are formed

9. Formation of Adverbs

• How they, and their comparison and superlative forms are made

10. Declension of idem 11. Personal Pronouns

• Is, Ea, Id

12. Interrogative Pronouns

• Quis, Quid

13. Demonstrative Pronouns

• Hic, Haec, Hoc
• Ille, Illa, Illud
• Iste, Ista, Istud

14. Relative Pronouns

• Quī, Quae, Quod

--Blurrzuki 23:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, most grammars (including most importantly Kennedy's and Gildersleeve and Lodge) don't list the locative in their tables. It forces patently nonsensical translations like "verbīs, at (the) words'" (what the apostrophe's doing I have no idea - is this supposed to be an "apud" alternative? It shouldn't be.). It would be much better to replace with an explanation of what the locative is, how it's formed (completely regular) and when it's used. It's been discussed further up and there was no objection. It should be fine. So Blurrzuki, do you want to or shall I? --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 00:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. You may go ahead. I'm revising the declension tables now. Hard work. —Blurr_zuki t - c 20:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the tables of locative case, latin has never had a such case, it is like greek, as in greek per syncretism the function of ablative are conflued to genitive , so, in latin, the locative idem was absorbed into Ablative not accusative. --Philx 02:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Other things...almost finished

I'm going to add a section called Peculiarities within declension, and the system used for third conjugation stems. Then, the article will basically, be complete! Though, this'll take a while. I'm a bit busy over here.--Blurrzuki 00:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

When it is, I will be very happy; and after I have used it, rapturous. I look forward to using it more then. Rintrah 14:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Question from an inferiorling

Greetings, Latin scholars. I have a question: is the first table in the First and Second Declension Adjectives section stating all masculine adjectives are declined like -us second declension nouns, all feminine adjectives like 1st declension nouns, and all neuter adjectives like 2nd declension -um nouns — except, of course, irregular adjectives, and adjectives in the other tables? Rintrah 15:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, adjectives generally follow either the first/second (a/us/um) or the second (is/e) declension. Shinobu (talk) 12:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Italian and Spanish 'grammatical' cases

I have reverted an edit by "84.146.122.203", who added that both Italian and Spanish have grammatical cases, although these are expressed by means of prepositions. My reasons follow infra; and I'd propose not to change back without first discussing this further here.

When we speak about 'cases', we may refer to specific functions or specific forms. The discussion in this article is essentially about special forms. Latin nouns have up to 6 different forms, but Italian and Spanish only have one form. Several modern languages have more forms than one; English has 2, German 4, and Polish 6; which this section refers to. It would be rather confusing to discuss prepositional constructions, which gramaticaly have similar functions as Latin or Polish case forms, in the middle of this. If we should touch this in this article, it should be in a very brief section of 'form' versus 'function'.

When we speak about functions, we may distinguish more than 6 or even 7 in Latin. Especially ablative has several fairly different functions (in a few cases corresponding to older distinctions of form). My grammar makes very fine distinction, ending up with the following list:

• Ablativus separativus
• Ablativus originis
• Ablativus comparationis
• Ablativus loci
• Ablativus viae
• Ablativus temporis
• Ablativis comitativus (rare)
• Ablativus qualitatis
• Ablativus instrumenti
• Ablativus pretii
• Ablativus causae
• Ablativus respectus (limitationis)
• Ablativus mensurae
• Ablativus absolutus

However, we count all these as one single case; or possibly two cases, if we distinguis a locative; even that distinction is motivated by differences in forms. (The same function as that of Ablativus loci is expressed by the form of the genitive for cities and smaller islands. If we want to talk of the case form of this function, we have to distinguish a case, which sometimes is identical to ablative, sometimes to genitive.) All other of the enumerated functions behave grammatically in a coherent manner: They have the same form, which we call the ablative case; and if the nouns have adjective attributes, these have the corresponding ablative forms (cf. congruence). (The latter hols also for ablativus loci, which is a major argument against treating locative as a separat case.)

There is nothing corresponding in the Italian or Spanish prepositional expressions. E.g., the preposition de is used in most modern Romanic languages (inter alia) to express a genitive function, much like of in English. Thus, I may translate The girl's book into Spanish as El libro de la chica; but that does not make de chica to a case form of chica. There is no reason to enumerate such preposition expressions in the middle of a discussion of case forms, or even case enumeration orders.

On the other hand, such information is valuable in articles about Italian or Spanish. JoergenB 12:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Spanish and Italian (and French, and Portuguese, and Catalan) have cases, but the case system of those languages is largely restricted to the personal pronouns. Depending on the grammarian, there is either a two-way distinction between direct and oblique or a three-way distinction between nominative, accusative and dative. At least in Spanish, there is also a special genitive form for the relative pronoun cuyo which, curiously enough, flexes with gender: compare el hombre cuyo caballo huyó (the man whose horse fled) with el hombre cuya yegua huyó (the man whose mare fled). None of this, however, has much bearing on an article about declension in Classical Latin. 189.122.82.229 (talk) 18:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Sixth Declension?

Is there really a sixth declension? There's no source for it, and the supposed method of it's birth was from an event in New Zealand. I can't find anything on W.T. Buckingham anywhere either. 204.39.56.140 18:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I removed the whole section. It sounds like a hoax. Googling "sixth declension" and Latin turns up only us ... someone is testing the system, methinks ... John Riemann Soong 11:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless one has been designed by neo-latinists, there is no such thing as a sixth declension. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems there was a 6th declension in Carolingian Latin (Signalons le rare oubli de quelques caractéristiques médiévales (par ex. l'apparition d'une sixième déclinaison à l'époque carolingienne, en -a, -ane : cf. la célèbre Dhuoda, Thomas Deswarte dixit). Such declension would evoke to me the Old French declension in -a, -ain. I alas can't find any source on it on Internet. Captain frakas (talk) 00:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Vocative in relative and demonstrative pronouns

I took the liberty to delete the vocative since this pronouns do not have vocative case, because it's impossible to call someone using the demonstrative i.e. "This Mark, come to say hi to your aunt!" In english sounds terrible, same for spanish and obviously the same in latin. As for the relative in vocative is exactly the same, but I'm too lazy to put here an example.189.145.100.70 02:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Accusative in English

It says under "accusative" that English (who > whom) is where English explicitly distinguishes accusative.

But "whom" is dative. (proof: english declension page) "who" is accusative or nominative. Right now is written very bad misinformation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.240.41.142 (talk) 02:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

This isn't entirely correct. "whom" is the modern form of an old dative. Since modern english doesn't grammatically distinguish between more than one object it would be more correct to call "whom" an object form, neither accusative nor dative.

--Asdfgl (talk) 23:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Whom should be accusative(I agree with Asdfgl). e.g. Whom do you see? Others I think are him, her.etc--Jondel (talk) 15:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment on the Greek Declensions

I am not expert enough to modify the Latin Declensions page, but, as a visitor, I would like to leave a comment -- I would get rid of the Greek declensions and put them on a separate page. The Greek declensions are similar, for sure, but I came to this page strictly to look at the Latin declensions (the subject of the article), and the Greek ones just cluttered the page for me. Spunkybart (talk) 19:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the first/second declensions' Greek subsections legitimately represent the incorporation of Greek loanwords, since their case system differs from Latin and might be otherwise indecipherable. However, I don't know enough about Greek to tell whether those charts are substantially different from the existing ones in the main "Ancient Greek" article other than word choice and Latinate transliteration. Wombat1138 (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Removal of tables

Hi, I (along with a few other people) am removing the tables present in the article, replacing them with a brief description of the declension endings, and setting up links to the relevant Wiktionary appendices. Is this okay? GlobeGores (talk | contribs) 04:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Why would you do that? What benefit to the article would that bring? The case/declension system lends itself very well to a tabulated representaion. Removing the tables would remove the structure and the result would certainly be less clear. Shinobu (talk) 12:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Description of Locative in English Usage Section

I am new to this, and I have been pouring over the Appendices to try and figure out a way to attack memorizing these tables. I noticed that the locative seems to be identical to the dative in every declension I have looked at so far (up to third). Most importantly, you say that it is identical to the genitive in the first declension singular but the genitive is identical to the dative too, so that is redundant. Also, in the second declension, that statement is just wrong. The second declension masculine singular genitive is muri, and the second declension masculine singular locative is muro. Luckily, the dative is identical to the locative here as well. That goes ditto for the third declension.

Moreover, if you include the Greek nouns in the first, second, and third declension it is an even more fallacious statement. Luckily, even with the Greek nouns, the locative is identical to the dative.

I am new to this and could very well be misinterpreting your meaning or misreading the tables, but, if I am right, please correct that statement. I would probably then personally dispense with the locative altogether for memorization purposes. Their meaning seems to be fairly identical anyway, with the locative just being specially qualified to locales. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.49.221 (talk) 05:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I asked one of my Latin professors and I now have a clear definition of Locative use:

• 1st or 2nd declension singular - Genitive form
• 3rd declension singular - Ablative form
• Plural of any declension - Ablative form

4th and 5th declension place names are so rare that even he couldn't think of one off the top of his head (counting irregular "Domus" to be 2nd declension for Locative purposes...).

As for the confusion on whether 3rd declension is Dative or Ablative, this is due to the language changing: in archaic times of Old Latin, for 3rd declension Locative Singular, *Dative and Ablative forms were used interchangeably*, however, in the Augustan Period the use of just the Ablative became fixed for 3rd declension Locative singular. So that's the answer. --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 21:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Third declension nominative singulars, etc.

The way the third declension nominative singulars had been shown with suffixes in the table was misleading. For example, "princeps" is not the root "prince-" with the suffix "-ps" attached as was implied. First, the root is "princip-", not "prince-". Second, "-ps" is not a suffix, and certainly not a regular feature of the nominative singular form. So I replaced the suffixes with a reference to a footnote I wrote explaining this. I proceeded accordingly with the vocative singular forms, as well as the neuter accusative singular.

Next, the way the genitives were shown at the top of a table (in the column headers in nom. sing. full, gen. sing. suffix form) implied that the genitives are built by adding the suffixes shown to the root. But they aren't—what the suffixes that were shown would have to be added to was not generally the root to which the suffixes in the body of each table are added. To add clarity, I replaced each suffix with the full genitive singular form. —Largo Plazo (talk) 23:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

What happened to Iste?

I could not find the declension of Iste (an informal insulting way to say that). i think it should be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashpotter (talk • contribs) 03:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Right under the table showing the declension of "ille" is the sentence "Another demonstrative pronoun iste, ista, istud, which means 'that of yours', and the intensive pronoun ipse, ipsa, ipsum follow the declension of ille, illa, illud." —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Vocative of Deus did not exist in Classical Latin?

What's this about the Vocative of Deus not existing in classical Latin? Vocative of Deus is given as same as the Nominative, "Deus" (as opposed to using -e like normal -us nouns)--Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 17:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I found an article that addresses this issue: Rauk, John (April 1997). "The Vocative of Deus and Its Problems". Classical Philology. Vol. 92 (No. 2). University of Chicago Press: pp. 138-149. ISSN 0009-837X. Retrieved 2008-08-01. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help); |volume= has extra text (help). (Reading now) Aramgar (talk) 18:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I forwarded it to my Latin professor with the question. --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 19:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

According to the article, the Classical vocative of deus cannot be established. The examples of the vocative “deus” in Classical Latin are problematic (Scribonius Largus and the Priapea). The grammarians who deal with the subject (Priscian , Probus, and the author of the Ars Bernensis) are essentially prescriptive and come to differing conclusions.

This said, I believe the edit summary mentioning “some priests in the Middle Ages” [3] is overly pejorative and false. I offer Ambrose and Augustus as examples of “priests” who knew their Cicero, but nevertheless used the vocative “deus”. Aramgar (talk) 19:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The first admissable usages of deus (or anything else) as the vocative for deus occur in Medieval Christian exegeses. Since this article is a descriptive overview of Classical Latin (ie. to c. 180 AD), what Medieval Latin writers (whose first language was not Latin but pre-Romance dialects) wrote, need not concern us here.--Yolgnu (talk) 06:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion on Classical vs Medieval should continue below. Meanwhile, we need to confirm if 1-"Deus" is indeed the Vocative Singular of "Deus" in Classical Latin 2-"Deus" in Classical Latin simply lacks of Vocative Singular or 3-there is indeed a rare, irregular Vocative singular form of Deus, along the liens of "Dive". Current texts at my disposal aren't very clear on the subject....DAMN YOU, WHEELOCK!--Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 18:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I have finished conferring with one of my Latin professors, who assured that there *is* indeed a Vocative Singular for Deus, and that it is indeed, also "Deus". Maybe there is some cutting-edge linguistic research going on about some obscure alternate singular forms, but *there is not consensus on this within the international linguistic studies community*, and it would be difficult for Wikipedia to substantiate/confirm this. For the time being, the "consensus" view will hold here, until disproven in a new/revised edition of the major Latin instruction texts. --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 17:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Rauk's (1997) article should be read together with Bengt Löfstedt's "Nochmals zum Vokativ von "Deus"" (1999), which criticises it. According to Rauk, the vocative of deus may have existed in classical times but cannot now be known; according to Löfstedt, the word deus was never used in the vocative in classical Latin, just as the Greek equivalent θεός theós is also never used in the vocative. – In Christian Latin, deus is overwhelmingly used, dee almost never. Kanjuzi (talk) 20:11, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I think Löfstedt's point that dee couldn't have existed can be countered by the fact that in contemporary Italian the form templi exists. It is presumed to exist in order to disambiguate it from tempi, which weakens Löfstedt's point about dee and de. The Christian use of Deus might have been principally due to Greek influence, although that only transfers the question of the absence of the vocative from Latin to Greek.

It should probably also be mentioned that in Renaissance Latin, dee is attested. (And interestingly, in later Greek so is the form Θεέ.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Classical Latin vs Medieval (Ecclesiastical) Latin

...Since when is this article devoted solely to Classical Latin? Surely, it is focused primarily on Classical Latin. And the article on Medieval Latin should contain a more definitive listing of major differences between the two. However, I see no reason that we shouldn't add in a note here or there on this page along the lines of "Note: this construction changed significantly enough in Medieval Latin that you should be aware of it, be careful". Of course, then we run into the whole debate of if "Medieval Latin" is a language in its own right. Indeed, the problem is that Medieval Latin writers were trying to *imitate* what Classical Latin was and were just imitating it to the best of their ability. But remember: this article is not meant as some sort of....Platonic "form", existing high, mighty, and pristine on the internet: as if only a "pure" Latin from the world-of-thoughts was the only Latin in existence.....rather, this article is meant as an aide to readers who are trying to decipher Latin. Some of them I am aware are Classicists studying Tacitus or Livy directly. But we do not all have the luxury of elegant Ciceronian prose! For those trying to use this to decipher Medieval Latin documents, it would better to add in notes or aides on major changes that have occurred; mentioning structural changes to Dative case, or major changes to words which here are used as paradigm words. --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 18:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that would best belong on the Medieval Latin page.--Yolgnu (talk) 00:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Declension of Numerals

the section on Numerals is incomplete. What are, definitively, all of the numeral constructions including the very rare ones? The two common ones are Cardinal and Ordinal. I have a basic idea of the uncommon Adverbial and Distributive. But I think there are several others mostly to do with fractions or something, i.e. duplex,triplex. --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 18:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

History of cases

• Old Latin had only two patterns of endings.

  Where did the other ones come from? Mixups between the existing ones? Sound changes? Foreign import?

• One pattern was shared by the first and second declensions, with a clear similarity to the first and second declensions of Ancient Greek.

  Yes, I noticed that in school. I didn't have to study for one of the Greek grammar tests because of this.

• The other pattern was used by the third declension and was very different from Greek, even for direct cognates.

  But Greek has a third declension, and some of the endings do look similar. And I know some Greek third declension words were borrowed in Latin as third declension words, even preserving some odd Greek forms. Please give a more detailed description of the history of the third declension and how it relates to the Greek one.

• When new words were absorbed into Latin, they were generally placed in the third declension.

  Really? Greek words with an alfa or omicron stem weren't, names were often latinized by adding first declension endings, some words and names that happened to end in -a have been put in the first declension... so I think that statement needs some qualifiers. And some detailed statistics, like loanwords by declension by language of origin by original declension or something like that.

Shinobu (talk) 12:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Second declension locative

According to this article, the locative of the first and second declension is identical to the respective genitive. Yet the wiktionary appendix says that locative singular is -ō. And if the locative singular is like the genetive, is it the same lenght also? The Old Latin page says that the locative was originally -ō, though. ~ InsérerNombreHere (talk) 18:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC) okai people get out more please! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.111.15.150 (talk) 11:28, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

According to Gildersleeve and Lodge, 3rd ed. (1903), §33 Remark 3, and Allen and Greenough (1903), §49a, the locative singular of the second declension ends in -ī (and not -ō). — Leendert Meyer 2001:838:305:0:0:0:0:3 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:28, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Macrons

Bennett was very quick to use the macron! My dictionaries do not know of his long vowels in ullus, nullus, princeps, audacter, instar, rastrum, etc. Can anything be gained by this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fostercoxfoster (talk • contribs) 04:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Nouns fifth declension section — typo?

In the table, it says "effigiēs, –ēī: effigy, ideal f." shouldn't "ideal" be "idol"? --Ptharien's Flame (Alexanderaltman) 01:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The Romans considered islands to be small

What does this have to do with the fact that the locative case is marginal in Latin? Tripsin (talk) 22:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Imperative case

There's an imperative case, but I don't see it mentioned here. It's used to issue orders. Perhaps it's the same as the Vocative, but then that should still be mentioned. (I don't recall it being the same as Vocative, though, but both are forms of address...)

Tace ("Be silent!") we used in my Latin class a lot. Iacete ("Throw, everyone!") we used to coin a word for Chucks (the hi-tops), since that was an in-thing in high school.

Nebuluus (talk) 09:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

See Latin conjugation - the imperative mood of verbs is discussed there. Count Truthstein (talk) 12:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

And iacete is wrong. The correct form is iacite. CapnPrep (talk) 02:50, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

To amplify on Count Truthstein's reply: Nebuluus, you're in the wrong article. Cases are part of declension, which applies to nouns and adjectives. The imperative is a mood (sometimes "mode"). Moods are part of conjugation, which applies to verbs. --Thnidu (talk) 06:05, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Dashes in table for phoenix and conamen

Why are there dashes under most of the plural entries for Phoenix and Conamen, in the 3rd declension tables? If someone knows, please clarify in the article. Does it mean "same as to the left", "same as above", "unattested", or something else?

Whatever the reason, does it make them poor choices for a table of "typical" examples, or are most 3rd declension words like that? Cbogart2 (talk) 23:30, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Third Declension, Nominatives Singular

The article states: "Masculine, feminine and neuter nouns each have their own special nominative singular endings. For instance, most masculine nouns end in an –or (amor). Most feminine nouns end in an –īx (phoenīx), and most neuter nouns end in an –us (onus). As in all declensions, some nouns defy these rules."

This suggests, at least, that a large majority of third declension nouns ends in -or, -ix, or -us. This is not the case. Third declension nominatives singular show great variation.

I would suggest the following changes: (1) Give lists of the most common endings with corresponding gender, e.g. -or/oris for masculine; -as/atis, -x/cis, -io/ionis, -do/-dinis, -tus/tutis etc. for feminine; -us/oris, -en/-inis, etc. for neuter. (2) Explain that most nom. sg. forms can be explained from an ending -s which usually contracted (c + s > x, -ion + s > -io, etc.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arjenvreugd (talk • contribs) 14:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Laudābilis

It says here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Comparatives_and_superlatives_of_.E2.80.93lis_adjectives that only adjectives listed there are the only ones with that unique form, but doesn't "Laudābilis" have the same form?

In my dictionary, which is the CASSELL'S LATIN DICTIONARY Latin-English English-Latin dictionary, on page 339, it has an entry that is as follows:

laudābĭlis -e (laudo), adj. (with compar.), praiseworthy, laudable: vita, Cic.; orator, Cic.; Ov.; Liv.
     Adv. laudābĭlĭter, laudably, in a praiseworthy manner: vivere, Cic."

Is the dictionary entry wrong, am I misunderstanding something, or is what Wikipedia incorrect? And, if it is just me, I'm sorry for bringing this up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.171.230 (talk) 17:18, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That section says only the adjectives listed have the irregular superlative form. They are the only adjectives with superlatives in -limus: for example, facilis with facillimus. The dictionary entry mentions the adverb ending in -iter, not the superlative. Therefore there's no contradiction. — Eru·tuon 03:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Subject Complement

The example under Nominative - 'Mary is my sister,' - can be said to contain a subject plus a subject complement. The word 'complement' is based on the word complete and is meant toward completely identifying the subject. The phrase 'Mary, ny sister...' provides the same meaning as 'Mary is my sister.' In Latin when two nominatives are together it usually signifies that the two have the same meaning. If you translate 'Mary,the sister of mine.' to Latin the Nominatives 'Mary' and 'sister' can be followed by the genitive 'of mine'. Source: My knowledge of subject complements came from 'A Comprehensive Grammar of the English language'. RCNesland (talk) 06:29, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

---

'MARIA SOROR MEI.' and 'MARIA SOROR MEI EST.' might be correct ways of translating 'Mary is my sister.' into Latin. Please correct me if I am wrong. RCNesland (talk) 04:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Consider yourself corrected. The possessive personal pronouns "meus", "tuus", "noster", and "vester", and the possessive reflexive pronoun "suus" are declined like 1st/2nd declension adjectives. (And I've just corrected the footnotes on those tables, from "2nd declension" to "1st and 2nd declensions".)

• Maria pulchra est.    Mary is beautiful.
• Maria soror mea est.   Mary is my sister.

Translating word-for-word is almost always a bad idea, and this is no exception. English "of mine" is called a "double genitive", as in "That car of Bill's is really fast."

Logically, you'd expect these to be "of me" and "of Bill", but these expressions are unidiomatic for possessive constructions. We use them only in non-possessive constructions like

• "a picture of me/Bill" (= a picture showing me/Bill [belonging to anyone at all])

which is very different from

• "a picture of mine/Bill's" (= a picture [showing anyone or anything] belonging to me/Bill)

Thnidu (talk) 06:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response Thnidu. My first language is english and I have not mastered a second language. I am searching for ways to improve english usage by comparing with foreign grammars. Your notes are quite helpful. RCNesland (talk) 07:09, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Venedotia case endings....

I do not speak Latin nor have studied the language, but am fascinated by it. I have tried to read the tabled to answer my question, but have not been able to identify the answer.

Basically I am looking for is what is the proper case ending for people from Venedotia (Gwynedd). For some reason, I am thinking it may be Venedotii ? I am unsure. There is a text written in the 5th century, post-Roman Gwynedd: "Cantiorix hic iacit/Venedotis cives fuit/consobrinos Magli magistrati", ("Cantiorix lies here. He was a citizen of Gwynedd and a cousin of Maglos the magistrate").

Any guidance you all may provide is welcome08:20, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

echo?

Where does echo (derived from Greek) belong to? en.wiktionary.org/wiki/echo#Latin lists it as 4th declension - than loan words from Greek in the 4th declension would be missing here. Older books (from the 19th century) seem to list it as 3rd declension, but they use another declension than given in Georges, which is: ēchō, -ūs, accusative -ōn, ablative -ō, f. (ηχώ). -IP, 08:31, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

4th declension

From 19th century books, like [books.google.de/books?id=uJREAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA102](&103):

• feminine nouns of the 4th declension: acus, domus, manus, porticus, tribus, idus (-uum, plurale tantum).
• Dat. & abl. plural with -ubus instead of -ibus: arcus, arcus, artus, ficus, lacus, partus, quercus, specus, tribus.
  Dat. & abl. with -ubus & -ibus: portus, sinus, genu, pecu, tonitru, veru.
  arcubus, artubus & partubus are used so it doesn't get mixed up with dat. & abl. of arx (dat. & abl. pl. arcibus), ars & pars.

It seems like the authors made complete lists (or at least tried to give complete lists) of these (kind of) irregular cases. As it isn't much: Should they be mentioned here (or maaybe at those en.wt pages)? -IP, 08:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Displaying syncretism

Latin displays many examples of syncretism (same forms for different cases and numbers). The article currently uses an order of cases (NOM-VOC-ACC-GEN-DAT-ABL) that places most of the identical case-forms in both the singular and plural next to each other (NOM-VOC, NOM-VOC-ACC, GEN-DAT, DAT-ABL). This is a good decision, in my mind, for making syncretism visible. I think something further could be done: the table cells of syncretic forms in each number could be merged (using rowspan properties). Here is an example.

	aqua, –ae water f.					bellum, –ī war n.
	Singular		Plural			Singular		Plural
Nominative	aqua	–a	aquae	–ae		bellum	–um	bella	–a
Vocative
Accusative	aquam	–am	aquās	–ās
Genitive	aquae	–ae	aquārum	–ārum		bellī	–ī	bellōrum	–ōrum
Dative			aquīs	–īs		bellō	–ō	bellīs	–īs
Ablative	aquā	–ā
Locative	aquae	–ae				bellī	–ī

I think I changed some of the tables in this way, but my changes must have been reverted. Do others object to this type of change? — Eru·tuon 01:28, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't revert it, but IMO it's not good. nom. & voc. (& acc. for neuter) are merged as they are the same. But gen. sg. and loc. sg. aren't merged even though they're the same, too. For this neuter example one could put loc. between gen. & dat., but I doubt that that is always a solution. Maybe it would work, if loc. would be omitted (or replaced by a note). Justification for the omitting/replacement: not every word has a locative. -91.63.251.125 (talk) 07:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Fides

Isn't the word "fides, fidei" (faith) belonging to the fifth declentsion? 87.1.122.76 (talk) 16:49, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Burzuchius (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. 87.1.122.76 (talk) 17:16, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

case order

What sense does it make to have the traditional order of cases - nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative - changed to this one with the accusative directly after the nominative. - What is the reason for this, if there is any? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:461E:2C00:4123:54C:1144:D400 (talk) 19:52, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

The reason is to give cases that are often syncretic together. Burzuchius (talk) 19:54, 15 February 2019

Thank you for your fast reply. - I see in the meantime that the issue is discussed in the article twice, shortly on top and more in detail below. - I am German and I have so far only been used to the order No - Ge- Da - Ac - Ab in both German and American texts, for either Latin and Greek <without of course the Ab in Greek>. I am almost shocked to learn that in Britain and most of their <former> colonies they use the order that appears also here. And even more that this seems indeed to be the order used in France, Spain and probably some other countries. - But I just checke here in Wiki that Russian too uses No - Ge - Da - Ac - Ab. You may include this here, as you talk about Poland but not about Russia in this context. Also Japan has clearly No - Ge - Da - Ac - Ab, while the Chinese have developed an order No - Ge - Da - Ac - Ab. The Chinese have No - Vo - Ge - Da - Ac - Ab for the Singular and No - Ge - Da/Ab - Ac in the Plural. - You may ad this to the Article.

The order of cases used in China or Russia is not relevant, since this is the English-language Wikipedia. The only issue is (a) the order used in America and (b) the order used in Britain and its former colonies. Even in America the order differs from one grammar to another. In Gildersleeve and Lodge we find NGDAcVAb, except in neuter nouns, where the order is NAcVGDAb. In Allen and Greenough (p. 17) we find NGDAAbV in the singular but NVGDAbAc in the plural, but on later pages we find NGDAcAb in the plural with no vocative. In Smyth's Greek grammar we find the order NGDAcV in the singular, NAcVGD in the dual, and NVGDAc in the plural. Take your pick. In the article Latin grammar I have added a sortable table. If you click on it, the order changes from the British to the American. Perhaps the same could be done here. Kanjuzi (talk) 06:10, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

subus

@Burzuchius: Quite right, Lucretius uses both sŭbus (6.970, 6.975) and sūbus (5.970). I withdraw my objection. Should we add a reference? Kanjuzi (talk) 17:32, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

minor, minus

As far as I know, minus is not an adjective: you can't say *minus oppidum to mean "a smaller town". It can be a noun (minus praedae "a smaller amount of booty") or an adverb (minus bellicosi "less warlike"). But minor is an adjective (e.g. minor aetate "younger in age"). So they are not parallel and shouldn't be put in the table side by side as if they were. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:59, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Sed oppidum minus est quam urbs — isn't minus an adjective here? Burzuchius (talk) 20:09, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

An ingenious point! However, that sentence wasn't written by a native speaker but it occurs in a note written by a 17th-century scholar, Andrew Dacer. You can search Perseus and the various Latin dictionaries in vain to find a similar example from a classical author. I'm not sure how you would say "smaller" in proper Latin, but probably it would be minus magnum, which is found in Cicero. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:36, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Isn't minus an adjective here? Burzuchius (talk) 20:24, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we can put it this way: minor is the opposite of maior (puer maior natu, puer minor natu), but minus is not the opposite of maius; you can say maius bellum but as far as I know you can't say minus bellum. Minus is the opposite of plus: minus praedae, multum praedae, plus praedae; minus te amo, multum te amo, plus te amo and so on. So minor and minus are not parallel and don't have the same meaning. Minor means smaller (in size) and minus means less (in quantity). Plus is not an adjective, and so minus is not an adjective. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:38, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

You seem to have paid no attention on my link! I don't understand well the grammar of Tacitus' passage, but in Celsus, minus is clearly the opposite of maius.

Now, let's say about plus. Plus praedae seems to be used only in the nominative and accusative; but there are pluris and plure used as gen. and abl. pretii. The opposite of pluris is minoris. Can't minoris be also an adjective?Burzuchius (talk) 09:24, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Quite right, I hadn't clicked on your new link. It certainly seems that Celsus is contrasting maius and minus here; although the translation "less" is also applicable. As for the oblique cases and the plural, it is undoubtedly an adjective. But it still seems to me that the usual meaning of minus is "less" rather than "smaller", whereas the meaning of minor is "smaller" not "less". Kanjuzi (talk) 10:00, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

agre, vire

How absurd to include the non-existent vocatives agre and vire! These should be omitted (even puere only occurs in Plautus, so is non-standard). The Wikipedia tables shouldn't include weird forms which are not found in Gildersleeve & Lodge or Kennedy. (According to both of these grammars, the vocative of these words is the same as the nominative.) On the other hand, the genitive plural -um (virum, nummum, sestertium) is quite common but for some reason not mentioned. But I get the impression that this whole article has been made on the fly, without reference to any standard grammar. It even has examples quoted from Ecce Romani, scarcely a reliable source of Latin grammar. Kanjuzi (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I have now removed agre and vire, but really the table needs to be recast in sortable form, so that those who prefer the American order can change it to that. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:31, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Incorrect examples

Whoever has added examples appears to have made them up, and some of them are incorrect. For example: trecentōs annōs Rōmanī tōtum Mare Mediterrāneum imperāvērunt, which is supposed to be an example of the accusative; there is no example of impero with the accusative meaning "rule" in Lewis and Short. Or again, Egō et Iūlia cum nostris amīcis de amīcitia dicebamus is surely an incorrect use of dico. The use of incurro with the plain accusative (Scīpiōnis Āfricānī exercitus incurret hostem) is also rare (and why the future tense?); it is usually used by historians in the form in hostem incurrere. The names of the different types of ablative, such as "difference degree ablative", are also made up and are not found in any standard grammar. In my opinion, it would be better to follow the grammar books and use real examples from Latin literature, as well as the standard terminology, with citations from Kennedy, Allen and Greenough, or Gildersleeve and Lodge. As it is, the article has some useful things, but because it has apparently been made without consulting any standard grammar, it seems very amateur as it stands and with numerous errors. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:28, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Here's another rather dubious sentence: Centum ex viris mortem dice timēbant et nihil clementiae exspectābant. Apart from the typo "dice", which has stood there uncorrected for at least two years, it would seem that Latin authors generally used diu with the perfect tense not the imperfect (unless iam is added). And the length of the example somewhat detracts from its function as an illustration of the ablative of separation. But I wonder if the whole section describing the use of cases shouldn't be removed? After all, this article is supposed to be about declension, not about usage. What do other people think? This section really belongs in Latin syntax, or perhaps in its own article; and it should be rewritten to make sure that the examples are genuine ones, not invented, and that the names of the various types of ablative etc. are given proper citations. There is already an adequate (but much shorter) description of the use of cases in Latin grammar, as well as piecemeal in articles such as Dative case and Latin syntax. I should think that there is an argument for making a new article with the title "Latin use of cases" and putting all the material there. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:33, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Correction: The example above (complete with its typo) was added on 26th January 2019. Kanjuzi (talk) 16:08, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The anonymous author, judging from the errors in spelling and English, appears to be a Spanish speaker, who has lifted all the examples, complete with the "dice" misprint, from this article in Spanish Wikipedia: es:Declinación del latín. But there are no citations there either. Kanjuzi (talk) 16:23, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

So what we have here is a long section, with invented examples in incorrect Latin, and incorrect English headings (such as "expecting circunstances ablative"), without any citations to say that such things as centum ex viris really is an ablative of separation (is it? Gildersleeve and Lodge give no similar example among the many quotations in their section on Ablativus separativus), and which is also completely irrelevant to the subject of the article. I therefore propose to delete the entire section shortly. The article was much better before it was added. Kanjuzi (talk) 14:13, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Since no objections were raised I have now deleted the whole section. If anything is said about the meaning of the cases here it should be very short, and the rest should go in a separate article. But it will need a lot of cleaning up before it is fit to make into an article. Kanjuzi (talk) 15:36, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Needless duplication

There is no need for a separate table for "tuus", "suus", "noster", "vester", since these are identical to "altus" and "miser". There is no need for separate tables for "familia" and "poeta", since these are identical. "Familia" is a peculiar word to choose for a paradigm, and the long wordy footnote discussing its meaning is irrelevant. Why not just choose "puella" or "mensa" like most grammars do? Because of these duplications, the article is needlessly long.

The section on "Correlatives" is very nice but has nothing to do with declension. Words like "ubi", "tot" and "quotiens" do not decline. I shall therefore delete it. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:26, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

These articles are written for an international audience. Our readers might expect such words to decline, especially if the equivalent word in their own native language does decline. Words that one might expect to decline but that are invariable in Latin should be listed at least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 04:21, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

why is there no answers

I was just looking for answers for my homework :( — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.171.121.212 (talk) 23:51, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

First declension ablative singular examples do not match the paradigm

Hello all. The first declension ablative singular ending is given as -ā in the paradigm table, but the two examples given, mensa and poēta, show the ablative singular as identical to the nominative singular. Is this an oversight or purposeful? I thought about being bold and changing the examples to match the paradigm, but thought I'd first check in here with the experts. Cheers, Northumbrian (talk) 18:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@Northumbrian: That was an error. Fixed. — Eru·tuon 19:52, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Cheers! Northumbrian (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Euro

The article has a subsection on declension of the Euro in Latin, claiming that there is an EU law that mandates the construction it describes. The assertion is uncited – and unciteable since it is not true. See Language and the euro, which reads

In official documents, the name "euro" must be used for the nominative singular in all languages, though different alphabets are taken into account and plural forms and declensions are accepted. In documents other than EU legal texts, including national legislation, other spellings are accepted according to the various grammatical rules of the respective language. For European Union legislation, the spelling of the words for the currency is prescribed for each language; in the English-language version of European Union legislation the forms "euro" and "cent" are used invariantly in the singular and plural, even though this departs from usual English practice for currencies.

No legal texts are written in Latin as it is not one of the official languages. The whole subsection reads as wp:original research and IMO should be deleted. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:22, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

It seems people have settled on eurō (-ōnis f.).

References

Vocatives on -us

Sometimes, words in -us are given a vocative in -us as well, see e.g. [4] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Virus

Couldn't find a citation for the genitive in -us. Presumably it's for the same reason it's neuter, that it used to be a neuter -s stem. But then I'd expect the u to be long? Like in Greek πελᾰ́γους. In any case, there should be a citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 04:04, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

History / etymology

More than ten years ago someone here remarked on the lack of historical discussion. When I look at the page now, I see that not much has changed and that the historical / etymological dimension is still almost entirely missing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 13:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)