2.2 First Declension — Epoché
What you will be able to do Write out the first declension, six cases in two numbers, from memory. Recognise a first-declension noun from its dictionary entry. Say why nearly all of them are feminine and name two that are not. Find the case of a first-declension noun in a sentence you have not seen. Read sentences like Pulchrum es. [31] — You're cute. — without looking anything up. Prerequisites : 2.1 — what inflection means. Latin nouns come in five families, called declensions, and each family has its own set of endings. The first is the place to start because its endings are the clearest and because it contains a large share of the ordinary vocabulary: aqua , terra , vīta , via , causa , nātūra , rosa , lingua , puella — you have already met every one of those. The table Twelve forms. Learn them as a chant, down the singular and then down the plural; that is how they have been learned for two thousand years and it still works. Case Singular Plural nominative — subject puella puellae genitive — of puellae puellārum dative — to, for puellae puellīs accusative — object puellam puellās ablative — by, with, from puellā puellīs vocative — calling puella puellae And here is the same thing as bare endings, which is the form you will actually use when you meet an unfamiliar word. Case Singular Plural nominative -a -ae genitive -ae -ārum dative -ae -īs accusative -am -ās ablative -ā -īs vocative -a -ae How to read the table Five things to notice, in order of how much trouble they will save you. The dictionary entry gives you the family. A Latin dictionary prints a noun as nominative plus genitive: puella, puellae , usually abbreviated puella, -ae . The genitive singular is what identifies the declension, and -ae means first. That is the whole reason the genitive is there, and it is why every word list in this course gives it. -ae is doing three jobs. Genitive singular, dative singular, nominative plural — and vocative plural as well. This looks like a defect and it is the single commonest source of confusion in the first declension. The way through it is not cleverness but context: puellae followed by a plural verb is a nominative plural; puellae next to another noun is a genitive; puellae after a verb of giving is a dative. Read the neighbours. The ablative singular is long. puellā against nominative puella : one macron apart, and no editor prints it. So in a real text the nominative and the ablative singular look identical, and you tell them apart by whether there is a preposition in front and by what the sentence needs. This is the first place where the macrons of lesson 0.2 stop being a pronunciation aid and become a piece of grammar you have to supply yourself. The dative and ablative plural are the same. -īs for both. This is true in every declension in Latin, without exception, and it is a genuine simplification: you never have to choose between them on the form. The sense decides. The gender rule has two exceptions you will meet. First-declension nouns are feminine, with one systematic class of exceptions: words for male occupations. agricola a farmer, nauta a sailor, poēta a poet, scrība a clerk are all first declension and all masculine, because the people were. They decline exactly like puella — the gender does not change the endings — but an adjective describing them has to be masculine, which is lesson 2.10's problem. One word about the vocative, since it has its own row and will not get a lesson of its own until 3.10. In the first declension it is identical to the nominative in both numbers, so there is nothing to learn. It earns its place in the table because in the second declension it is different, and it is easier to see that once you have seen a declension where it is not. Seen in real Latin Eight sentences from the corpus, every one containing a first-declension noun. Read each aloud, decide the case before you look, then check. Latin English The noun and its case Aqua est. [1] It's water. aqua nominative singular Aquam volo. [2] I want water. aquam accusative singular Aquam, quaeso. [3] Some water, please. accusative although there is no verb — the verb is understood Aqua vita est. [4] Water is life. two nominatives: sum links them Puella pulchra est. [5] The girl is beautiful. puella nominative; pulchra matches it Terra pulchra est. [6] The earth is beautiful. the same shape with a different noun Nemo in terra mea opus facit. [7] Nobody works in my country. terrā ablative after in — looks like the nominative Ubi aqua est, ibi vita est. [8] Where there's water, there's life. two nominatives in two clauses The seventh is the important one. in terra mea is an ablative — "in my country" — and the printed form terra is indistinguishable from the nominative. What tells you is the preposition in , which takes the ablative when it means "in" and the accusative when it means "into". Lesson 3.7 makes that pair of uses a lesson in itself; for now the lesson is that the preposition is part of the evidence. The fourth and eighth show a thing that will keep recurring: sum does not take an object, so both sides of it are nominative. Aqua vīta est is water-nominative, life-nominative, "is" — and English has the same rule, hidden, which is why careful speakers say it is I . Lesson 3.2 is about this. New words Word (dictionary form) Meaning Note via la road, way; a method Part of speech noun, 1st declension, feminine ( viae ) How it differs from English hooks: via , viaduct , deviate , obvious (in the way) nauta la sailor Part of speech noun, 1st declension, masculine ( nautae ) How it differs from English hooks: nautical , astronaut ; from Greek, and masculine although it ends -a poēta la poet Part of speech noun, 1st declension, masculine ( poētae ) How it differs from English the oe is not a diphthong here — three syllables pulcher la beautiful, handsome, fine Part of speech adjective ( pulchra, pulchrum ) How it differs from English the feminine pulchra is the form that agrees with a 1s