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The feminine of first- and second-declension adjectives uses the -ā class of the first declension: -os, -ā/ē, -on; First- and third-declension adjectives, including participles in -nt-, use the -(y)ă class. Here are examples of this class, which is complex because of sound changes involving the y (see Ancient Greek nouns: short a): -us ...
The first declension includes mostly feminine nouns, but also a few masculine nouns, including agent nouns in -της, patronyms in -ίδης, and demonyms. The first-declension genitive plural always takes a circumflex on the last syllable. In Homeric Greek the ending was -άων (ᾱ) or -έων (through shortening from *-ηων).
The second part of a binomial is often a person's name in the genitive case, ending -i (masculine) or -ae (feminine), such as Kaempfer's tody-tyrant, Hemitriccus kaempferi. The name may be converted into a Latinised form first, giving -ii and -iae instead. Words that are very similar to their English forms have been omitted.
Neuter words in the nominative and accusative plural have the endings -α (-a) or -η (-ē). They are divided into the 2nd and 3rd declensions according to the endings of their genitive and dative cases, which are the same as those of masculine nouns. τὰ δένδρα (tà déndra) "the trees" – 2nd declension
The second declension contains two types of masculine Greek nouns and one form of neuter Greek noun. These nouns are irregular only in the singular, as are their first-declension counterparts. Greek nouns in the second declension are derived from the Omicron declension. Some Greek nouns may also be declined as normal Latin nouns.
The latter class, i.e. the neuter nominative/accusative singular, usually ends with -um in Latin and -ον (-on) in Greek, matching the accusative of the former. In Latin, the masculine words of the second declension that end with -us in the nominative case are differently declined from the latter in the vocative case: such words end with -e.
A few Greek nouns in -os, mostly geographical, belong to the second declension, and sometimes have an accusative in -on such as Dēlos, Acc. Dēlon (but Dēlum in prose). In the genitive singular, names in -ēs, parisyllabic, take -ī as well as -is. Some feminine nouns in -ô have the genitive in -ūs.
Although the a of the Greek and Latin first declension was not originally a thematic vowel, it is considered one in Greek and Latin grammar. In both languages, first-declension nouns take some endings belonging to the thematic second declension. An a-stem noun was originally a collective noun suffixed with -eh₂, the ending of the neuter plural.