Anybody who has ever picked up a book teaching Latin always fears these words! Too often, learners are faced with seemingly interminable tables of endings and grammatical rules which they need to memorise immediately.
While declensions and cases are of great importance in the study of Latin – and they cannot be avoided – it is better to acquire knowledge gradually with plenty of practice to ensure that each step is confidently and securely learnt.
We will begin with cases.
A noun can perform different functions in a sentence. Look at the English examples below.
- My friend works in London.
- Did you see my friend?
- This is my friend’s car.
- I gave the money to my friend.
- Are you going there with my friend?
You can see that the noun ’friend’ can, for example, be the subject of the sentence, the person doing the action (My friend works in London) or the person who is the object of the action (Did you see my friend?) or who owns something (my friend’s car). English is heavily reliant on word order and prepositions (to my friend; with my friend) to indicate the specific function of a noun in a sentence. Apart from ‘s in ‘my friend’s car’, the noun itself does not change.
The endings of Latin nouns do change depending on their function. The functions are called cases. Here we will deal with two; in fact, you have already learnt two cases without even realising!
Nominative case: subject; predicate
The nominative case is used for nouns which are:
[1] the subject of the sentence, the person or thing performing the action contained in the verb, or the person / thing being described:
- Amīcus meus Rōmae labōrat. My friend works in Rome.
- Quantī cōnstat hic gladius? How much does this sword cost?
- Iūlius est Rōmānus. Julius is a Roman.
[2] the predicate nominative of the sentence; this is most commonly found after the verb ‘to be’; est may be, as in English, between the subject and the predicate, for example:
- Amīcus meus est Rōmānus. My friend is a Roman.
- Britannia [nominative] est īnsula [nominative]. Britannia is an island.
- Vocative case: talking directly to someone (or something)
[i] Earlier in the posts you learned that, when males are addressed directly, a name ending in -us changes to -e, and a name ending in -ius changes to -ī. This is the vocative case.
Nominative Mārcus est amīcus meus. Marcus is my friend.
> Vocative Salvē, Marce! Hello, Marcus!
Nominative Iūlius est agricola. Julius is a farmer.
> Vocative Cūrā ut valeās, Iūlī! Take care, Iulius!
[ii] The vocative case is also used with other masculine nouns in –(i)us that are not proper nouns i.e. they are not personal names, but they have a vocative in -e
Nominative: amīcus (friend)
> Vocative: amīce
Nominative socius (ally)
> Vocative: socie
[iii] An exception is fīlius (son) which has the same vocative ending as a proper noun ending in -ius:
Nominative fīlius
> Vocative fīlī
[iv] Meus in the vocative case changes to mī:
Nominative Iūlius est fīlius meus. Julius is my son.
Vocative Valē, fīlī mī! (or mī fīlī) Farewell, my son!
[v] A noun in the vocative case may be preceded by an exclamatory ō! (like the English ‘oh’).
Nominative Mārcus est amīcus meus. Marcus is my friend.
> Vocative Ō amīce mī! Salvē! Oh, my friend! Hello!
[vi] The vocative case is not used with any other nouns, nor is it used in the plural at all: in all other nouns, the nominative is the same as the vocative. The vocative does occur in adjectives ending in -us which you will study later.
[vii] Technically, the vocative case can also be used when talking directly to inanimate nouns that end in –(i)us. If you’re in the habit of talking to your garden, then you would say Ō horte! (Oh, garden!) Ō horte mī! (Oh, my garden!) – but not many do, including the Romans, nor did Winston Churchill when his form master explained to him:
"Mensa, O table, is the vocative case," he replied.
"But why O table?" I persisted in genuine curiosity.
"O table – you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table." And then seeing he was not carrying me with him, "You would use it in speaking to a table."
"But I never do," I blurted out in honest amazement.
"If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely," was his conclusive rejoinder.
But if you do wish to address, invoke or speak to a river then you know how to do it: Ō fluvie!
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