Lesson 3 - First Declension Nouns

Nouns of the first declension have -ae as the genitive singular ending.

To decline a first declension noun, first isolate the base/stem by removing the ending from the genitive singular form; then to the base add the following endings:

                                  Singular                  Plural

Nominative               -a                            -ae

Genitive                    -ae                          -arum

Dative                       -ae                          -is

Accusative                -am                         -as

Ablative                    -ā                            -is

Vocative                   -a                            -ae

Our model is rosa, -ae (rose)

                        SINGULAR    TRANSLATIONS

N                     rosa                 the/a rose

G                     rosae                of the rose/ rose’s

D                     rosae                to/for the rose

Ac                    rosam              the rose (direct object)

Ab                   rosā                 by/in/with/from the rose

V                     rosa                 o, rose

                        PLURAL

N                     rosae                the roses

G                     rosarum           of the roses/ roses’

D                     rosis                to/for the roses

Ac                    rosas                the roses (direct object)

Ab                   rosis                by/in/with/from the roses

V                     rosae                o, roses

Note 4 - Most of the first declension nouns are feminine. It has few masculine nouns.


VOCABULARY
In addition to the vocabulary words listed in pp. 4-5 of the latin exercise book, study the following:


cena - f. supper, dinner
culpa - f. blame, fault
doctrina - f. teaching, doctrine
ecclesia - f. church, assembly
familia - f. family, household
gratia - f. grace, favor, credit; pl., thanks
hora - f. hour
missa - f. mass
papa - m. pope

Lesson 2 - Overview of Nouns

NUMBERS 
- singular or plural


GENDERS
- masculine, feminine, neuter or common


CASES

Various terminations assumed by nouns (adjectives and pronouns as well) according to their function in the sentence.

a. NOMINATIVE 

– denotes the subject of the verb 

– answers Who? What? 

b. GENITIVE 

– denotes possessive case 

– answers Who’s? Of what? 

- “of” or ‘s or s’ 

c. DATIVE 

- denotes indirect object 

- answers To whom? For whom? 

- to/for

d. ACCUSATIVE 

- denotes direct object 

- answers Whom? What? 

- Used with preposition 

e. ABLATIVE 

- Expresses means, instrument, manner, separation 

- answers Where? When? Whence? By or with what? 

- Used with preposition 

- By/in/with/from 

f. VOCATIVE 

- Denotes direct address or the person addressed. 

g. LOCATIVE 

- survives in certain restricted uses; it has largely been absorbed by the ablative case

DECLENSION

-To decline a word à to enumerate all its cases 

Example:

The boy loves the girl 

Puer ama puellam 

- Latin nouns are declined in 5 different ways. So there are 5 declensions which are distinguished from one another by the terminations of the genitive singular, as follows. 

I = -ae 

II = i 

III = is 

IV = us 

V = ei