Latin Outline- Declining Nouns

1st Declension Nouns

I. First off, you will memorize these forms, but you won't see some of them until the end of the
year at the soonest
II. The three cases we see in this book are the nominative, accusative, and what's called the dative.
You will also memorize the genitive and the ablative.
III. There are 4 declensions
1. Each declension contains certain words, and each have all five cases. There is the singular
and the plural for each case in each declension
IV. Every noun is either masculine, feminine, or neuter
1. In future tests, I may ask about gender, number, and case, and you must know the difference
V. In addition to the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative cases, we also have the
vocative case, but it's not as common, so you don't have to memorize it.
1. The nominative case tells what the subject is, or is an adjective referring to the subject
2. The genitive case shows possession, like adding an 's to the end of English words
3. The dative case indicates the indirect object
1. The man showed the painting to the merchant.
4. The accusative case is the object that takes an action
5. The ablative case acts as an adverb
6. The vocative case addresses a person in direct speech- “Frank, we need to go.”
VI. We will study the 1st declension only right now, but soon we will add the second declension
singular plural
nominative toga togae
genitive togae togarum
dative togae togis
accusative togam togas
ablative toga togis

VII. First declension nouns are almost always feminine, and almost always end with -a in the
nominative
VIII. Identify and decline all 1st declension nouns from Stages 1 and 2 for homework