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Latin Grammar: Nouns and Verbs
Stems and Endings:
Nouns in Latin are made up of two parts referred to as a "stem" and an "ending."
The stem is the part of the word that carries its primary unchanging meaning (the baisc word: dog, cat, go, walk).
The ending is a part of the noun that indicates grammatical function in a sentence and number (singular or plural).
Declensions:
We have studied three main groups of nouns called declensions (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), in which all nouns have similar endings in the nominative and accusative cases. The table bleow shows one noun from the 1st declension and one from the 2nd declension--all other nouns ion those declensions follow the same patterns of stems and endings. There are several different kinds of nominative singular form for the 3rd decelension. The 5 that you ahve learned are represented in the table below.
Nouns in action: Read the sentences and translations, referring to the chart to correlate endings with number and grammatical function.
1. coquus pāvōnem parāvit. (The cook prepared the peacock.)
2. coquī pāvōnem parāvērunt. (The cools prepared the peacock.)
3. puellae actōrem spectānt. (The girls are watching the actor.)
4. āctōrēs puellam salūtāvērunt. (The actors greeted the girl.)
5. ancilla senem excītāvit. (The slave-girl woke up the old man.)
6. senex ancillam vituperāvit. (The old man cursed the slave-girl.)
