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Nouns in Latin have a series of different forms, called cases of the noun, which have different functions or meanings. For example, the word for "king" is rēx when it is the subject of a verb, but rēgem when it is the object: rēx videt "the king sees" (nominative case) rēgem videt "(he) sees the king" (accusative case)
Latin declension is the set of patterns according to which Latin words are declined—that is, have their endings altered to show grammatical case, number and gender. Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are declined (verbs are conjugated ), and a given pattern is called a declension.
Latin word order is relatively free. The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man'); [5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common). [6]
Active–stative (or simply active): The argument (subject) of an intransitive verb can be in one of two cases; if the argument is an agent, as in "He ate", then it is in the same case as the agent (subject) of a transitive verb (sometimes called the agentive case), and if it is a patient, as in "He tripped", then it is in the same case as the ...
A special case is the word you: originally, ye was its nominative form and you the accusative, but over time, you has come to be used for the nominative as well. The term "nominative case" is most properly used in the discussion of nominative–accusative languages, such as Latin, Greek and most modern Western European languages.
Nominative case (1) agent, experiencer; subject of a transitive or intransitive verb: he pushed the door and it opened nominative–accusative languages (including marked nominative languages) Nominative case (2) agent; voluntary experiencer: he pushed the door and it opened; she paused active languages: Objective case (1) direct or indirect ...
Nominative–accusative alignment can be coded by case-marking, verb agreement and/or word order. It has a wide global distribution and is the most common alignment system among the world's languages (including English). Languages with nominative–accusative alignment are commonly called nominative–accusative languages.
Languages with nominative–accusative alignment can detransitivize transitive verbs by demoting the A argument and promoting the O to be an S (thus taking nominative case marking); it is called the passive voice. Most of the world's languages have accusative alignment. An uncommon subtype is called marked nominative. In such languages, the ...