Key words:
case
nominative
predicative nominative
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.
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.
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:
Britannia [nominative] est īnsula [nominative]. | Britannia is an island.
Amīcus meus est Rōmānus. | My friend is a Roman.
Gladius est. | It’s a sword.
Mihi est vīnum. | I have wine [literally: to me
(there) is wine].