Declension

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Declension

In linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, declension is the occurrence of inflection

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
in noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s, pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a Determiner , such as Wiktionary:you and Wiktionary:they in English language....
s and adjective

Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
s, indicating such features as number

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(typically singular vs. plural), case

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
(subject

Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
, object

Object (grammar)

An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence Predicate . It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb....
, and so on), and gender

Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, but is much less prominent in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
; English nouns decline only to distinguish singular from plural (e.g., book vs. books); only very few English adjectives decline (the French loan-word blond(e) being a rare exception), and only a few English pronouns show vestiges of case-triggered declension (e.g., nominative case

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
he, dative case

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
or accusative case

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
him, genitive case

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
(possessive case

Possessive case

The possessive case of a language is a grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of Possession . It is not the same as the genitive case, which can express a wider range of relationships, though the two have similar meanings in many languages....
) his).

a class="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m475789",this)' onMouseout='hide("m475789")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Modern_English">Modern English

Modern English

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Declension'

Start a new discussion about 'Declension'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

In linguistics

Linguistics

Inflection

Noun

Pronoun

Adjective

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(typically singular vs. plural), case

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
(subject

Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
, object

Object (grammar)

An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence Predicate . It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb....
, and so on), and gender

Grammatical gender

English language

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
he, dative case

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
or accusative case

Accusative case

Genitive case

Possessive case

English

In Modern English

Modern English

Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern English, or more specifically, are referred to as using...
, nouns have distinct singular and plural forms; that is, they decline to reflect their grammatical number. (Consider the difference between book and books.) In addition, a small number of English pronouns have distinct nominative and objective forms; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a verb

Verb

In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
or preposition. (Consider the difference between he (nominative) and him (dative

Dative

Dative has several meanings.*In grammar, the dative case is used to indicate the noun to whom something is given.*In chemistry, a dative bond is a chemical bond in which the shared electrons come from one atom only....
or accusative), as in "He saw it" and "It saw him.") Further, these pronouns and a few others have distinct possessive forms, such as his. (By contrast, nouns do not have distinct possessive forms; rather, the clitic

Clitic

In linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonology dependent word. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level....
-'s attaches to a noun phrase to indicate that it serves as a possessor.)

English once had a much richer system of declension. First, there were a few more grammatical cases; Modern English's objective case results from a merging of Old English's accusative, dative

Dative

Dative has several meanings.*In grammar, the dative case is used to indicate the noun to whom something is given.*In chemistry, a dative bond is a chemical bond in which the shared electrons come from one atom only....
, and instrumental cases (like a message, him, and post in "I sent a message to him via post," respectively). Second, the distinction between these cases was visible in all nouns, not just certain pronouns (indeed, the modern clitic -'s descends from an affix used to mark Old English's genitive case, the ancestor of Modern English's possessive

Possessive

Possessive may be:* Possessive case* Possessive adjective* Possessive pronoun* Possessive suffix* Possessive construction, pattern among words indicating possession ...
pronoun forms). Third, adjectives were declined to reflect the number and case of the nouns they modified; this is called agreement
Agreement (linguistics)

In languages, agreement is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when one word changes in form depending on to which other words it is being related....
, and is analogous to conjugation

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
of verbs in Modern English (consider the difference between "I read" and "He reads"; here, read has changed form to agree with its subject). Fourth, every noun had a gender

Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
, either masculine, feminine, or neuter, which was reflected (via agreement) in adjectives that modified it and pronouns that had it as antecedent (there were some further complications as well; for example, adjectives had both weak declensions and strong declensions. For more information, see Old English morphology

Old English morphology

The morphology of the Old English language is quite different from that of English language, predominantly by being much more highly inflection....
).

Latin

An example of a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
noun declension is given below, using the singular forms of the word homo (man), which belongs to Latin's third declension.

(nominative
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
) "[the] man" [as a subject] (e.g., the man is standing there)
(genitive
Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
) "of [the] man" [as a possessor](e.g., the man's name is Claudius)
(dative
Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
) "to [the] man" [as an indirect object] (e.g., I gave a present to the man; Man is a wolf to man.)
(accusative
Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
) "[the] man" [as a direct object] (e.g., toward the man, in the sense of argument directed personally; I saw the man)
(ablative
Ablative case

In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to grammatical case in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ....
) "[the] man" [in various uses not covered by the above] (e.g., I am taller than the man).

There are two further noun declensions in Latin, namely the vocative and the locative. The vocative is widely used in Latin and refers to addressing someone or something (e.g., O Tite, cur servam pugnas? O Titus, why do you fight the slave girl?) The locative case is only rarely used in Latin, but refers to the location of a person or an object.

Sanskrit

Declension has been analyzed extensively in Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
, where it is known as karaka

Karaka

Karaka may refer to the following:*Karaka , a tree endemic to New Zealand.*Karaka, New Zealand is a small town in the North Island, New Zealand....
. Seven varieties are defined by Pa?ini

Pa?ini

was an Iron Age India Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara .He is known for his Vyakarana, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit Morphology in the grammar known as 'Ashtadhyayi' , the foundational text of the grammatical branch of the Vedanga, the auxiliary scholarly disciplines of historical Ved...
, largely in terms of their semantic role

Thematic role

Thematic role is a linguistics notion, which may refer to:* Theta role * Thematic relation ...
s, but with detailed rules specifying the corresponding morphosyntactic derivations:

agent (often in subject position, performing independently)
patient (often in objective position)
means (instrumental
Instrumental case

The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action....
)
recipient (similar to dative
Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
)
source (similar, but not the same, as ablative
Ablative case

In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to grammatical case in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ....
)
possessor (genitive
Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
)
locus (locative
Locative case

Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases together with the lative case and separative case case....
or goal)

In addition, another declension exists, known as the vocative. It is used to indicate the object being addressed. For example, consider the following sentence:


[from] the tree	a leaf	[on] the ground	falls
"a leaf falls from the tree on (onto) the ground"

Here leaf is the agent, tree is the source, and ground is the locus, the corresponding declensions are reflected in the morphemes and , respectively.

In addition, another declension exists, known as the vocative. It is used to indicate the object being addressed. For example: , "O Rama".

Languages with rich nominal inflection typically have a number of identifiable declension classes, or groups of nouns that share a similar pattern of declension. Whereas Sanskrit has six classes, Latin is traditionally said to have 5 declension classes (see article on Latin declension

Latin declension

Latin is an Inflection language, and as such has nouns, pronouns, and adjectives that must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension....
). Such languages often exhibit free word order, since thematic roles are not dependent on position.

Though English pronouns can have subject and object forms (he/him, she/her), nouns show only a singular/plural and a possessive/non-possessive distinction (e.g., chair, chairs, chair's, chairs'). Note that chair does not change form between "the chair is here" (subject) and "I saw the chair" (direct object). The n-declension is restricted to a few words like ox-oxen, brother-brethren, and child-children, though in Medieval English the s-declension and the n-declension were in stronger competition.

Declension

English

Latin

Sanskrit

See also

Declension in specific languages

Related topics

External links