How many verb conjugations/noun declensions in total?

[LatinRookie]

Hey everyone,

New to the board; introduced myself in General Latin Chat.
I'm currently on Caput II of Wheelock's Latin, 7th ed.

My question is: how many different verb types are there? And how many noun types are there?
As I understand it, there are 4 different kinds of verbs depending on what their "key letter" is. So far I've only seen "are" and "ere" verbs like "volare" and "terrere" (Wheelock's uses "laudare" and "monere").

Nouns are a little tricky. Is there an easy way to remember the cases? Here's how I understand it...

Nominative: The subject, whatever's DOING the verb.

Accusative: Object, whatever's GETTING DONE by the verb. An accusative noun needs a subject to exist, so it can't function without a nominative noun. So, a noun just standing alone defaults into the nominative case, right?

Genitive: This is for nouns that modify other nouns, right? Usually for posession but for other stuff too? I think of the cases this one confuses me the most. Maybe it's because I get it mixed up with adjectives and their cases/genders.

Dative: Indirect objects. This pops up when sentences get cluttered and there's more than one focus. This is for nouns that aren't the subject or object but aren't genitive either.

Ablative: I don't really know too much about this one, I'll have to reread it a few times.

Vocative: This one seems to be rarely used. One place I read said it only really appears in chronicles or tombs.

At the moment I'm focusing more on the first 4 cases because they seem to be the most frequently used. Have I understood everything correctly? I also wanted to know about adjectives. What is their basic form? Do they have cases? Or just genders? Is there an easy way to remember them? Thanks!

 

[Matthaeus]

Four verb conjugations (along with some irregular verbs) and five noun declensions. Adjectives fall into the noun group, but it's more complicated than that, they agree with their nouns in gender, case, and number. There are many with one termination, many with two, some with three.

 

[Ignis Umbra]

As you said the genitive case confuses the most...

The genitive case is commonly used to indicate possession, such as the noun phrase Equus reginae - the horse of the queen -> the queen's horse. There is also the objective genitive, as in pictura canis - the picture of the dog (as in someone took a picture of a dog), and the partitive genitive, as in Pars eius fugere vult - part of him wanted to flee (I.e. He was torn between a decision to flee and something else)

The vocative case is used when calling attention to a particular noun, such as in Marce, statim abi! - Mark, leave immediately!

The ablative is used for a variety of purposes, denoting place, time, the doer of a subject in a passive sentence, etc. One of the most common uses of the ablative is to express means (I.e. How something is done). To explain further, consider the sentence (the bolded word is the ablative) Carro domum redivimus - we returned home by cart -> we returned home by means of a cart.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

 

[Tacitus Arctous]

Ignis Umbra's treatment of the Genitive was not exhaustive, but I guess you do not need it here.

 

[LatinRookie]

It's strange: genitive singular and nominative plural have the same ending. I'm noticing a lot of identical endings for different noun cases. How is that not confusing?

 

[Ignis Umbra]

It's strange: genitive singular and nominative plural have the same ending. I'm noticing a lot of identical endings for different noun cases. How is that not confusing?

The endings are confusing when you see the word isolated. You can determine its case by examining the surrounding words in a sentence. For example, in the sentence equum reginae vidi, reginae cannot be nominative plural because the verb is first person singular.

Ignis Umbra's treatment of the Genitive was not exhaustive, but I guess you do not need it here.

Uhh I'm sorry? What's wrong with my explanation?

 

[Lucius Aelius]

The endings are confusing when you see the word isolated. You can determine its case by examining the surrounding words in a sentence. For example, in the sentence equum reginae vidi, reginae cannot be nominative plural because the verb is first person singular.


Uhh I'm sorry? What's wrong with my explanation?

One would assume that he refers to the fact that you only listed the main uses of the genitive, leaving out less common uses such as the genitive of value.

 

[LatinRookie]

Also, question about adjectives:
Adjectives themselves do not have a gender. They can appear in one of 3 forms because they agree with the noun. Their appearance depends on which noun they get attached to. Is this correct?

 

[Lucius Aelius]

Also, question about adjectives:
Adjectives themselves do not have a gender. They can appear in one of 3 forms because they agree with the noun. Their appearance depends on which noun they get attached to. Is this correct?

More or less.
Some of the adjectives have less than three forms -- this (to my knowledge) only appears in the ones that look like they'd be third declension if they were nouns (e.g. ingens and naturalis -- ingens only has one form for all the genders, and naturalis is only different in the neuter, where it is naturale).

 

[Tacitus Arctous]

The endings are confusing when you see the word isolated. You can determine its case by examining the surrounding words in a sentence. For example, in the sentence equum reginae vidi, reginae cannot be nominative plural because the verb is first person singular.


Uhh I'm sorry? What's wrong with my explanation?

Nothing wrong. I just said it was not exhaustive, as it was not your intention anyway.

 

[Ignis Umbra]

Oh ok!

 

[LatinRookie]

So does anyone have any tips for remembering which declension a noun belongs to? Or for remembering the declension patterns themselves?

 

[Ignis Umbra]

I'd say that examining the nominative forms of words is probably the easiest route (except for the third declension maybe) to memorize to which declension a particular word belongs. If a word's nominative singular suffix is -a, the word is first declension. If the word's nominative singular suffix is -us and the genitive singular is -i, the word is second. There are numerous suffixes for the third declension, so if the suffix seems irregular, it is probably third declension. If the word's nom. suffix is -us and the genitive is also -us, the word is fourth declension. If the suffix is -es and the genitive is -ei, the word is fifth.

As far as declension patterns are concerned, my first Latin teacher had us sing songs using each of the various endings to memorize the first and second declension case suffixes. Repetitive recitation always helps, additionally.

 

[Lucius Aelius]

I'd say that examining the nominative forms of words is probably the easiest route (except for the third declension maybe) to memorize to which declension a particular word belongs. If a word's nominative singular suffix is -a, the word is first declension. If the word's nominative singular suffix is -us and the genitive singular is -i, the word is second. There are numerous suffixes for the third declension, so if the suffix seems irregular, it is probably third declension. If the word's nom. suffix is -us and the genitive is also -us, the word is fourth declension. If the suffix is -es and the genitive is -ei, the word is fifth.

As far as declension patterns are concerned, my first Latin teacher had us sing songs using each of the various endings to memorize the first and second declension case suffixes. Repetitive recitation always helps, additionally.

Don't forget the neuter second declension, where the nominative ends in -um.