In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, declension (verb: ''to
decline'') is the changing of the form of a
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...
, generally to express its
syntactic function in the sentence by way of an
inflection
In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...
. Declension may apply to
noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
s,
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...
s,
adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
s,
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...
s, and
determiner
Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examp ...
s. It serves to indicate
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
(e.g. singular, dual, plural),
case (e.g.
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
,
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
, or
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...
),
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
(e.g. masculine, feminine, or neuter), and a number of other
grammatical categories. Inflectional change of
verb
A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...
s is called
conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:
Linguistics
*Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form
*Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language
Mathematics
*Complex conjugation, the change o ...
.
Declension occurs in many languages. It is an important aspect of language families like
Quechuan (i.e., languages native to the
Andes
The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...
),
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
(e.g.
German,
Icelandic,
Irish,
Lithuanian and Latvian,
Slavic,
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
,
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
,
Ancient
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient h ...
and
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...
,
Albanian,
Romanian,
Kurdish, and
Modern Armenian),
Bantu (e.g.
Swahili,
Zulu,
Kikuyu),
Semitic (e.g.
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...
),
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...
(e.g.
Hungarian,
Finnish,
Estonian), and
Turkic (e.g.
Turkish).
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
was an
inflectional language, but largely abandoned inflectional changes as it evolved into
Modern English
Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England
England is a Count ...
. Though traditionally classified as
synthetic, Modern English has become a mostly
analytic language
An analytic language is a type of natural language in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles and modifiers, using affixes very rarely. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesi ...
.
English-speaking perspective
Unlike English, many languages use
suffixes
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
to specify subjects and objects and word cases in general.
Inflected languages have a freer word order than modern English, an
analytic language
An analytic language is a type of natural language in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles and modifiers, using affixes very rarely. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesi ...
in which
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
identifies the subject and object.
As an example, even though both of the following sentences consist of the same words, the meaning is different:
* "The dog chased a cat."
* "A cat chased the dog."
Hypothetically speaking, suppose English were a language with a more complex declension system in which cases were formed by adding the suffixes:
: - (for
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
singular), - (
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
), - (
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...
), - (
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
), - (
locative
In grammar, the locative case ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and " ...
), - (
instrumental
An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...
), - (
vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
), - (
ablative)
The first sentence above could be formed with any of the following
word orders and would have the same meaning:
* "The dog chased a cat."
* "A cat chased the dog."
* "Chased a cat the dog."
As a more complex example, the sentence:
* Mum, this little boy's dog was chasing a cat down our street!
becomes nonsensical in English if the words are rearranged (because there are no cases):
* A cat was down our street chasing dog this little boy's mum!
But if English were a highly inflected language, like
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
or some
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...
such as
Croatian, both sentences could mean the same thing.
They would both contain five nouns in five different cases: ''mum'' – vocative (hey!), ''dog'' – nominative (who?), ''boy'' – genitive (of whom?), ''cat'' – accusative (whom?), ''street'' – locative (where?); the adjective ''little'' would be in the same case as the noun it modifies (''boy''), and the case of the determiner ''our'' would
agree with the case of the noun it determines (''street'').
Using the case suffixes invented for this example, the original sentence would read:
* Mum, this little boy dog was chasing a cat down our street!
And like other inflected languages, the sentence rearranged in the following ways would mean virtually the same thing, but with different expressiveness:
* A cat was down our street chasing dog this little boy, mum!
* Mum, down street our a cat was chasing this little boy dog!
Instead of the ''locative'', the ''instrumental form'' of "down our street" could also be used:
* Mum, this little boy dog our street was chasing a cat!
* A cat was, mum, our street chasing dog this little boy
* Our street a cat was chasing dog this little boy, mum!
Different word orders preserving the original meaning are possible in an inflected language,
while modern English relies on word order for meaning, with a little flexibility.
This is one of the advantages of an inflected language. The English sentences above, when read without the made-up case suffixes, are confusing.
These contrived examples are relatively simple, whereas actual inflected languages have a far more complicated set of declensions, where the suffixes (or prefixes or
infixes) change depending on the
gender of the noun, the
quantity of the noun, and other possible factors. This complexity and the possible lengthening of words is one of the disadvantages of inflected languages. Notably, many of these languages lack
articles. There may also be ''irregular nouns'' where the declensions are unique for each word (like
irregular verbs
A regular verb is any verb whose Verb conjugation, conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. Th ...
with
conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:
Linguistics
*Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form
*Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language
Mathematics
*Complex conjugation, the change o ...
). In inflected languages, other
parts of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...
such as
numerals
A numeral is a figure (symbol), word, or group of figures (symbols) or words denoting a number. It may refer to:
* Numeral system used in mathematics
* Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English ...
,
demonstrative
Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning ...
s,
adjectives
An adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, ...
, and
articles are also declined.
History
It is agreed that
Ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically re ...
had a "vague" idea of the forms of a noun in their language. A fragment of
Anacreon seems to confirm this idea. Nevertheless, it cannot be concluded that the Ancient Greeks actually knew what the cases were. The
Stoics
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient ...
developed many basic notions that today are the rudiments of
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
. The idea of grammatical cases is also traced back to the Stoics, but it is still not completely clear what the Stoics exactly meant with their notion of cases.
Modern English
In
Modern English
Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England
England is a Count ...
, the system of declensions is so simple compared to some other languages that the term ''declension'' is rarely used.
Nouns
Most nouns in English have distinct ''singular'' and ''
plural
In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...
'' forms. Nouns and most noun phrases can form a ''
possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...
'' construction. Plurality is most commonly shown by the
ending ''-s'' (or ''-es''), whereas possession is always shown by the en
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic ( , backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
''-'s'' or, for plural forms ending in ''s'', by just an apostrophe.
Consider, for example, the forms of the noun ''
girl
A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. While the term ''girl'' has other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.com, "Girl"'' Retrieved January 2, 2008. '' daughter'' or '' girlfriend'' regardless of age ...
''. Most speakers pronounce all forms other than the singular plain form (''girl'') exactly the same.
By contrast, a few irregular nouns (like
man
A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy.
Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the f ...
/men) are slightly more complex in their forms. In this example, all four forms are pronounced distinctly.
For nouns, in general, gender is not declined in Modern English. There are isolated situations where certain nouns may be modified to reflect gender, though not in a systematic fashion. Loan words from other languages, particularly Latin and the Romance languages, often preserve their gender-specific forms in English, e.g. ''alumnus'' (masculine singular) and ''alumna'' (feminine singular). Similarly, names borrowed from other languages show comparable distinctions: ''Andrew'' and ''Andrea'', ''Paul'' and ''Paula'', etc. Additionally, suffixes such as ''-ess'', ''-ette'', and ''-er'' are sometimes applied to create overtly gendered versions of nouns, with marking for feminine being much more common than marking for masculine. Many nouns can actually function as members of two genders or even all three, and the gender classes of English nouns are usually determined by their agreement with pronouns, rather than marking on the nouns themselves.
There can be other derivations from nouns that are not considered declensions. For example, the proper noun ''
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales
* The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
'' has the associated descriptive adjective ''
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
'' and the
demonym
A demonym (; ) or 'gentilic' () is a word that identifies a group of people ( inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place ( hamlet, village, town, city, region, ...
''
Briton
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, w ...
''. Though these words are clearly related, and are generally considered
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.
Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
s, they are not specifically treated as forms of the ''same word'', and thus are not declensions.
Pronouns
Pronouns
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not con ...
in English have more complex declensions. For example, the
first person "
I":
Whereas nouns do not distinguish between the
subjective (nominative) and
objective (oblique) cases, some pronouns do; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a
verb
A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...
or
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
, or
case. Consider the difference between ''he'' (subjective) and ''him'' (objective), as in "He saw it" and "It saw him"; similarly, consider ''
who'', which is subjective, and the objective ''whom'' (although it is increasingly common to use ''who'' for both).
The one situation where
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
is still clearly part of the English language is in the pronouns for the third person singular. Consider the following:
The distinguishing of neuter for persons and non-persons is peculiar to English. This has existed since the 14th century.
However, the use of ''
singular they
Singular ''they'', along with its inflected or derivative forms, ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'', and ''themselves'' (also ''themself'' and ''theirself''), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun derived from plural they. It typically oc ...
'' is often restricted to specific contexts, depending on the dialect or the speaker. It is most typically used to refer to a single person of unknown gender (e.g. "someone left their jacket behind") or a hypothetical person where gender is insignificant (e.g. "If someone wants to, then they should"). Its use has expanded in recent years due to increasing social recognition of persons who do not identify themselves as male or female (see
gender-nonbinary). The ''singular they'' still uses plural verb forms, reflecting its origins.
Adjectives and adverbs
Some English adjectives and adverbs are declined for
degree of comparison. The unmarked form is the
positive form, such as ''quick''. Comparative forms are formed with the ending ''-er'' (''quicker''), while superlative forms are formed with ''-est'' (''quickest''). Some are uncomparable; the remainder are usually periphrastic constructions with ''more'' (''more beautiful'') and ''most'' (''most modestly''). See
degree of comparison for more.
Adjectives are not declined for case in Modern English (though they were in Old English), nor number nor gender.
Determiners
The demonstrative determiners ''this'' and ''that'' are declined for number, as ''these'' and ''those''.
The
article is never regarded as declined in Modern English, although formally, the words ''that'' and possibly ''
she'' correspond to forms of the predecessor of ''the'' (''sē'' m., ''þæt'' n., ''sēo'' f.) as it was declined in Old English.
Latin
Just as verbs in Latin are conjugated to indicate grammatical information, Latin nouns and adjectives that modify them are declined to signal their roles in sentences. There are five important cases for Latin nouns:
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
,
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...
,
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
, and
ablative. Since the
vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
usually takes the same form as the nominative, it is seldom spelt out in grammar books. Yet another case, the
locative
In grammar, the locative case ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and " ...
, is limited to a small number of words.
The usual basic functions of these cases are as follows:
*Nominative case indicates the
subject.
*Genitive case indicates
possession and can be translated with 'of'.
*Dative case marks the
indirect object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
and can be translated with 'to' or 'for'.
*Accusative case marks the
direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
.
*Ablative case is used to modify verbs and can be translated as 'by', 'with', 'from', etc.
*Vocative case is used to address a person or thing.
The genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative also have important functions to indicate the object of a preposition.
Given below is the declension paradigm of Latin ''puer'' 'boy' and ''puella'' 'girl':
From the provided examples we can see how cases work:
Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
, another Indo-European language, has eight cases:
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
,
vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
,
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
,
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...
,
ablative,
locative
In grammar, the locative case ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and " ...
and
instrumental
An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...
. Some do not count vocative as a separate case, despite it having a distinctive ending in the singular, but consider it as a different use of the nominative.
Sanskrit grammatical cases have been analyzed extensively. The grammarian
Pāṇini
(; , ) was a Sanskrit grammarian, logician, philologist, and revered scholar in ancient India during the mid-1st millennium BCE, dated variously by most scholars between the 6th–5th and 4th century BCE.
The historical facts of his life ar ...
identified six semantic
roles
A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an
expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indi ...
or ''karaka'', which correspond closely to the eight cases:
* agent (, related to the nominative)
* patient (, related to the accusative)
* means (, related to the instrumental)
* recipient (, related to the dative)
* source (, related to the ablative)
*relation (, related to genitive)
* locus (, related to the locative)
* address (, related to the vocative)
For example, consider the following sentence:
Here ''leaf'' is the agent, ''tree'' is the source, and ''ground'' is the locus. The endings ''-aṁ'', ''-at'', ''-āu'' mark the cases associated with these meanings.
Verse 37 of the Rāmarakṣāstotram gives an example of all 8 types of declensions in Sanskrit for the singular proper noun Rāma.
Declension in specific languages
*
Albanian declension
*
Basque declension
Arabic
* Classical and Modern Standard
Arabic declension (ʾIʿrab)
Greek and Latin
*Ancient Greek and Latin
First declension
*Ancient Greek and Latin
Second declension
*Ancient Greek and Latin
Third declension
The third declension is a category of nouns in Latin and Greek with broadly similar case formation — diverse stems, but similar endings. Sanskrit also has a corresponding class (although not commonly termed as ''third''), in which the so-ca ...
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Greek declension
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Latin declension
Latin declension is the set of patterns according to which Latin language, Latin words are Declension, declined—that is, have their endings altered to show grammatical case, Grammatical number, number and Grammatical gender, gender. Nouns, pron ...
Celtic languages
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Irish declension
In Irish grammar, declension happens to nouns, the definite article (grammar), article, and the adjectives.
Irish mostly has five noun declensions , each with four cases (nominative, vocative, genitive, dative), and singular and plural forms. Th ...
Germanic languages
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German declension
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Icelandic declension
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Gothic declension
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Dutch declension system (abandoned)
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Middle English declension
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
Baltic languages
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Latvian declension
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Lithuanian declension
Slavic languages
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Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian declension
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Czech declension
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Polish declension
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Russian declension
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Slovak declension
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Slovene declension
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Ukrainian declension
Romance languages
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Romanian declension
Indo-Aryan languages
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Urdu and Hindi declension
Uralic languages
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Finnish noun cases
Languages that lost their declension system
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Modern Arabic dialects (incl.
Maltese)
* Most Germanic languages:
** English
** Dutch
** Danish
** many Norwegian dialects
** many Swedish dialects
* Most Romance languages:
** Spanish
** Portuguese
** French
** Italian
** Catalan
* Some Slavic languages
** Bulgarian
** Macedonian
*Some Celtic languages
**Welsh
See also
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Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation ( ) is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'' ...
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Grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...
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Strong inflection
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Weak inflection
Notes and references
Notes
Citations
External links
The Status of Morphological Case in the Icelandic Lexiconby Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson. Discussion of whether cases convey any inherent syntactic or semantic meaning.
Optimal Case: The Distribution of Case in German and Icelandicby Dieter Wunderlich
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Lexicon of Linguistics:Declension*
Lexicon of Linguistics:BaseStemRoot*
Lexicon of Linguistics:Defective Paradigm*
Lexicon of Linguistics:Strong Verb*
Lexicon of Linguistics:Inflection Phrase (IP)INFLAGRTense*
Lexicon of Linguistics:Lexicalist Hypothesis
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Grammatical cases
Grammar
Linguistic morphology
Linguistics terminology