The Most Important Things To Remember About Conjugations and Declensions Are

LATIN CONJUGATIONS AND DECLENSIONS
Teachers often call us around lesson five trying to figure out what exactly is a declension. Read the Latina
Christiana I Teacher Manual, pages 3-4 again. It should answer most of your questions.
The most important things to remember about conjugations and declensions are:
1. There are five declensions and four conjugations.
2. Declensions are a system for organizing nouns. Conjugations are a system for organizing verbs
3. Declensions have cases (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative) which can be singular or
plural. (They also have small variances based on whether the noun is Masculine, Feminine or Neuter)
4. Conjugations have 1st, 2nd, & 3rd person which can be singular or plural. They also have six tenses
(present, past, etc)
NOUNS IN LATIN (DECLENSIONS)
DECLENSIONS
• Why are there five declensions? Well, there are many theories on why five. Declensions loosely group similar nouns
together (although this doesn’t always hold true). They are a system of classifying words like we have a system for
classifying animals (genus, etc.).
• Also, since the ending of Latin words (the case) determines the function (subject, direct object, etc), if every Latin
noun was in the same declension, every word in a sentence would have a similar ending. This would have made it
very difficult to distinguish words when they were spoken, and you would feel like you were speaking a constant
nursery rhyme.
• Don’t worry too much about why the declensions exist. Just accept that they are a part of any inflected language like
Latin. All you really need to know about declensions is that they tell you what group endings a noun uses. (You will
learn different endings for each declension.)
CASES
• In English the function of a noun (subject, direct object, indirect object, etc) is determined primarily by word
placement. Notice how changing word order in the sentence below changes the function of the noun.
▪ The girl (subject) sees the queen (direct object)
▪ The queen (subject) sees the girl (direct object)
• In Latin, the function of the noun is determined by the ending. Remember: The endings come from the declension and
then the case within that declension. There are five cases, and these cases exist for all declensions and have the same
functions for all declensions. The only thing that changes between declensions is the endings.
CASE FUNCTION
Nominative Subjects or predicate nouns
Genitive possessive nouns
Dative indirect objects
Accusative direct objects/prepositional objects
Ablative prepositional objects
• In Latina Christiana I, you will learn two declensions, the First Declension and the Second Declension (Masculine &
Neuter). The endings for these declensions are:
First Declension 2nd Declension 2nd Declension
Masculine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative a ae us i um a
Genitive ae arum i orum i orum
Dative ae is o is o is
Accusative arum as um os um a
Ablative a is o is o is
LATIN VERBS (CONJUGATIONS)

CONJUGATIONS
• There are four conjugations. Again, they are a system of classifying verbs and each conjugation has different endings.
• The important thing to remember about conjugations is that they tell you what group of endings a specific verb
uses. The endings themselves actually tell you the person (I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they) and the tense (future, past,
present, etc.)
• The tenses and person exist for all conjugations and mean the same thing in all conjugations. The only thing that
changes in different conjugations is the endings.
PERSON
• There are three persons in Latin
▪ First person: Referring to the speaker or writer.
▪ Second person: Referring to the person or thing addressed.
▪ Third person: Referring to one that is neither the speaker or writer.
• In Latin, the person of a verb is determined by its ending. In English, the person is determined by a noun or personal
pronoun and word placement.
• The person of a verb operates somewhat like the case of a noun. It can be singular or plural and the ending of the verb
changes as you change the person. The chart below should help explain person. Notice how the person doing the
action and the ending (in bold) changes each time.
FIRST CONJUGATION VERB FORM
PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL

1st voco I call vocamus we call
2nd vocas you (singular) call vocatis you (plural) call
3rd vocat he, she, it calls vocant they call
SIX TENSES
• The Present tense denotes a state or action in the very moment of the utterance.
• The Future tense denotes a state or action that will take place in the future.
• The Future Perfect tense denotes a state or action that will precede another future state or action.
• The Imperfect tense denotes a state or action that is taking place with another past state or action.
• The Perfect tense denotes a state or action that has taken place in the past.
• The Pluperfect tense denotes a state or action that had happened in the remote past or had preceded another past
state or action.

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LATIN CONJUGATIONS AND DECLENSIONS

NOUNS IN LATIN (DECLENSIONS)

LATIN VERBS (CONJUGATIONS)

FIRST CONJUGATION VERB FORM

PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL

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