What is the point of cases in Latin?
Why do Latin nouns change so much?
If you have ever been confused about what all the cases in Latin are for, this is the post for you!
Latin uses cases of nouns
Each one does a different job. I’ll go through the role of each one individually and give some examples in English to help you get the gist.
Start with the basics:
The nominative
This is the subject of the sentence. They're the person or thing doing the verb.
The accusative
They're the object of the sentence. They're the person or thing receiving the action, or that the verb is being done to.
I greet the teacher.
I am the nominative, doing the verb. The teacher is the accusative, receiving the action.
Then the fun ones:
The genitive
This shows possession. We can translate it using the word “of” in English, or 's.
The man's pen.
Man is in the genitive because it is his pen, he has possession of it.
We could say “the pen of the man” or “the man's pen” as our translation.
The dative
This is what's called the indirect object of the sentence and we translate it using “to” or “for”.
I gave the gift to the girl.
The girl is in the dative.
I made dinner for the dog.
The dog is in the dative.
The ablative
The ablative is usually used to show
instrument
agent
location
We use “by”, “from”, “with”, or “in” to translate it.
I ate with a fork
The fork is in the ablative case, and this one is an instrumental ablative.
The king was killed by the soldiers
The soldiers is in the ablative here, this time an ablative of agent.
To be clear, the ending in Latin won’t change, just how we use it in our English translation would, so have all those options in mind when you meet an ablative.
Important extra case
Now I missed one that often doesn't get taught in schools, because it is almost always the same as the nominative, but I'm going to add it in anyway.
In UK noun tables it goes in between the nominative and the accusative.
The vocative
This one is used for direct address. So if I'm speaking to someone:
I say, “Felix!”
In Latin, Felix would be in the vocative.
Cases are important
So these are the six cases that you really need to know in Latin. If you want to have a look at any of the noun endings and how they change for each of those cases, you can download my free noun endings guide here. It has all the endings you need for first, second, and third declension nouns. So go and grab that, it'll really help.
I'll see you next time on bambasbat!