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35-463: An ars grammatica (English: art of grammar ) is a generic or proper title for surveys of Latin grammar . The first ars grammatica seems to have been composed by Remmius Palaemon (first century CE), but is now lost. The most famous ars grammatica since late antiquity has been that composed by Donatus . Two artes grammaticae circulate under the name Donatus. The first, the Ars Minor ,

70-443: A noun , e.g. vir bonus or bonus vir "a good man", although some kinds of adjectives, such as adjectives of nationality ( vir Rōmānus "a Roman man") usually follow the noun. Latin is a pro-drop language ; that is, pronouns in the subject are usually omitted except for emphasis, so for example amās by itself means "you love" without the need to add the pronoun tū "you". Latin also exhibits verb framing in which

105-411: A much more elevated plane. It consists of a list of stylistic faults and graces, including tropes such as metaphor , synecdoche , allegory , and sarcasm . Donatus also includes schemes such as zeugma and anaphora . The Ars Grammatica or De Oratione et Partibus Orationis et Vario Genere Metrorum libri III by Diomedes Grammaticus is a Latin grammatical treatise . Diomedes probably wrote in

140-414: A nominative case are nouns, adjectives, pronouns and (less frequently) numerals and participles. The nominative case often indicates the subject of a verb but sometimes does not indicate any particular relationship with the other parts of a sentence. In some languages, the nominative case is unmarked, and it may then be said to be marked by a null morpheme . Moreover, in most languages with a nominative case,

175-637: A section Disputatio de vera philosophia ('dialogue on true philosophy'). In the assessment of Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter, 'the content of these works is highly derivative, but the pedagogy is innovative, and the way in which the work of compilation has been executed gives a new ideological twist to traditional material'. Other extant works of Ars grammatica have been written by Latin grammar Thus verbs can take any of over 100 different endings to express different meanings, for example regō "I rule", regor "I am ruled", regere "to rule", regī "to be ruled". Most verbal forms consist of

210-808: A single word, but some tenses are formed from part of the verb sum "I am" added to a participle; for example, ductus sum "I was led" or ductūrus est "he is going to lead". Classified things (represented by common nouns) belong to one of three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). The gender of the classified thing is realized by the last syllables of the adjectives, numbers and pronouns that refer to it: e.g. male animals such as hic vir "this man" and hic gallus "this cock", female animals such as haec mulier "this woman" and haec gallīna "this chicken", and either sexually undifferentiated animals such as hoc ovum "this egg" or stuff in general such as hoc "this thing". Specific kinds of stuff and abstract things also have one of

245-468: A singular meaning, e.g. castra "a camp", litterae "a letter", nūptiae "a wedding". Nouns are divided into three genders , known as masculine , feminine , and neuter . The difference is shown in the pronouns and adjectives that refer to them, for example: To a certain extent, the genders follow the meanings of the words (for example, winds are masculine, tree-names feminine): Neuter nouns differ from masculine and feminine in two ways: (1)

280-471: A verbal noun can stand for the object of the implied verb (called an "objective genitive"): A genitive noun can stand for the subject of the implied verb (called a "subjective" genitive): A frequent type of genitive is the partitive genitive, expressing the quantity of something: The dative case means "to" or "for". It is frequently used with verbs of saying or giving: It can also be used with certain adjectives: Nominative case In grammar ,

315-416: Is a brief overview of the eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition, and interjection ( nomen, pronomen, verbum, adverbium, participium, conjunctio, praepositio, interjectio ). The text is presented entirely in a question-and-answer format (e.g. "How many numbers does a noun have?" "Two: singular and plural."). Donatus' Ars Major is only a little longer, but on

350-451: Is in the nominative, and the nominative is often the form listed in dictionaries. The English word nominative comes from Latin cāsus nominātīvus "case for naming", which was translated from Ancient Greek ὀνομαστικὴ πτῶσις, onomastikḗ ptôsis "inflection for naming", from onomázō "call by name", from ónoma "name". Dionysius Thrax in his The Art of Grammar refers to it as orthḗ or eutheîa "straight", in contrast to

385-537: Is similar to diēs except for a short e in the genitive and dative singular reī . In addition to the above there are some irregularly declined nouns, mostly borrowed from Greek, such as the name Aenēās "Aeneas" (1st declension masculine). The vocative is nearly always the same as the nominative, except in 1st and 2nd declension masculine singular words, such as Aenēā! "Aeneas!" and domine! "master!/lord!". Some words, such as deus "god", have no separate vocative, however. The nominative case

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420-614: Is the object: Further cases mean "of" (genitive case), "to/for" (dative case), and "with" (ablative case). Nouns for people have a separate form used for addressing a person (vocative case). In most nouns for women and girls, the vocative is the same as the nominative. Some nouns, such as the names of cities and small islands, and the word domus "home", have a seventh case called the locative , for example Rōmae "in Rome" or domī "at home"; however, most nouns do not have this case. The genitive, dative and ablative cases are called

455-410: Is used for the subject of an active or a passive verb: It is also used for the complement of a copula verb such as est "he is" or factus est "he became": The vocative case is used when addressing someone: The accusative case is used for the object of a sentence: It is also used as the subject of an infinitival clause dependent on a verb of speaking or the like: It can be

490-426: Is used for the subject of a transitive verb or a voluntary subject of an intransitive verb but not for an involuntary subject of an intransitive verb. Since such languages are a relatively new field of study, there is no standard name for this case. English is now often described as having a subjective case , instead of a nominative, to draw attention to the differences between the "standard" generic nominative and

525-421: The accusative (comparable to the oblique or disjunctive in some other languages): I (accusative me ), we (accusative us ), he (accusative him ), she (accusative her ), they (accusative them ) and who (accusative whom ). A usage that is archaic in most current English dialects is the singular second-person pronoun thou (accusative thee ). A special case is the word you : originally, ye

560-457: The nominative case ( abbreviated NOM ), subjective case , straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb , or (in Latin and formal variants of English) a predicative nominal or adjective , as opposed to its object , or other verb arguments . Generally, the noun "that is doing something"

595-452: The oblique or "bent" cases. The reference form (more technically, the least marked ) of certain parts of speech is normally in the nominative case, but that is often not a complete specification of the reference form, as the number and the gender may need to be specified. Thus, the reference or least marked form of an adjective might be the nominative masculine singular. The parts of speech that are often declined and therefore may have

630-560: The vocative (used for addressing someone). Nouns for places have a seventh case, the locative ; this is mostly found with the names of towns and cities, e.g. Rōmae "in Rome". There is no definite or indefinite article in Latin, so that rēx can mean "king", "a king", or "the king" according to context. Latin word order tends to be subject–object–verb ; however, other word orders are common. Different word orders are used to express different shades of emphasis. (See Latin word order .) An adjective can come either before or after

665-538: The "oblique" cases. The order in which the cases are given in grammar books differs in different countries. In Britain and countries influenced by Britain, the order nominative, vocative, accusative is used as in the table below. In the United States, in grammars such as Gildersleeve and Lodge's Latin Grammar (1895), the traditional order is used, with the genitive case in the second place and ablative last. In

700-430: The ablative singular. The genitive plural in some nouns is -um , in others -ium . (For details, see Latin declension .) 3rd declension nouns can be of any gender. It is not usually possible to guess the genitive of a noun from the nominative: dux "leader" has genitive ducis but rēx "king" has rēgis ; pater "father" has genitive patris but iter "journey" has itineris . For this reason

735-501: The complement of another word which is itself accusative: It can also be used with a place name to refer to the destination: The accusative is also used after various prepositions (especially those that imply motion towards): Another use of the accusative is to give a length of time or distance: A genitive noun can represent a kin: A genitive noun can stand for the object of mental processes such as misereor "I pity" and oblīvīscor "I forget": A genitive noun attached to

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770-498: The genitive is always given in dictionaries, and can be used to discover the remaining cases. 4th and 5th declension nouns are less common. They decline like the following ( manus "hand", genū "knee", diēs "day"): 4th declension nouns are usually masculine, but a few, such as manus "hand" and anus "old lady", are feminine. There are only four 4th declension neuter nouns. 5th declension nouns (except for diēs (m) "day") are usually feminine. rēs "thing"

805-498: The late 4th century AD. The treatise is dedicated to a certain Athanasius. The third book on poetry is particularly valuable, containing extracts from Suetonius ' De poetica . This book contains one of the most complete lists of types of dactylic hexameters in antiquity, including the teres versus , which may be the so-called golden line . The Ars of Diomedes still exists in a complete form (although probably abridged). It

840-416: The nominative and vocative singular. In the 2nd declension, the genitive plural in some words is optionally -um , especially in poetry: deum or deōrum "of the gods", virum or virōrum "of men". Neuter nouns such as bellum "war" have -a in the nominative plural. In neuter nouns, the vocative and accusative are always the same as the nominative; the genitive, dative, and ablative are

875-558: The nominative form is the lemma ; that is, it is the reference form used to cite a word, to list it as a dictionary entry etc. Nominative cases are found in Albanian , Arabic , Estonian , Sanskrit , Slovak , Ukrainian , Hungarian , Lithuanian , Georgian , German , Latin , Greek , Icelandic , Old English , Old French , Polish , Serbian , Czech , Romanian , Russian and Pashto , among other languages. English still retains some nominative pronouns , which are contrasted with

910-943: The nominative singular, like puella "girl" are known as 1st declension nouns , and so on. The following table shows the declension of puella "girl" (1st declension), dominus "lord, master" (2nd declension masculine), and bellum "war" (2nd declension neuter): 1st declension nouns are usually feminine, except for a few referring to men, such as agricola "farmer" or poēta "poet". The nouns fīlia "daughter" and dea "goddess" have dative and ablative plural fīliābus, deābus . The locative case ends in -ae , pl. -īs , e.g. Rōmae "in Rome", Athēnīs "in Athens". 2nd declension nouns in -us are usually masculine, but those referring to trees (e.g. pīnus "pine tree") and some place names (e.g. Aegyptus "Egypt") are feminine. A few 2nd declension nouns, such as vir "man" and puer "boy", lack endings in

945-458: The path of motion is encoded into the verb rather than shown by a separate word or phrase. For example, the Latin verb exit (a compound of ex and it ) means "he/she/it goes out". In this article a line over a vowel (e.g. ē) indicates that it is long . Most Latin nouns have two numbers, singular and plural: rēx "king", rēgēs "kings". A few nouns, called plūrālia tantum ("plural only"), although plural in form, have

980-401: The plural nominative and accusative forms end in -a , e.g. bella "wars", corpora "bodies"; (2) the subject (nominative) and object (accusative) cases are identical. 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

1015-405: The popularly used Wheelock's Latin (1956, 7th edition 2011) and Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar (1903), however, the vocative is placed at the end. The following table shows the endings of a typical noun of the 3rd declension. If Gildersleeve and Lodge's order is preferred, click on the symbol "GL" in the seventh column in the table below; for Wheelock's order click on "Wh": Sometimes

1050-499: The same as the masculine. Most 2nd declension neuter nouns end in -um but vīrus "poison" and vulgus "crowd" end in -us . Third declension nouns have various patterns of declension. Some decline like the following: mīles "soldier", urbs "city", corpus "body": There are some variations, however. A few, such as vīs, vim, vī "force", have accusative singular -im and ablative singular -ī ; some, like ignis "fire", optionally have -ī instead of -e in

1085-466: The same endings, e.g. -ēs and -ibus , are used for more than one case. Since the function of a word in Latin is shown by ending rather than word order, in theory rēgēs dūcunt could mean either "the kings lead" or "they lead the kings". In practice, however, such ambiguities are rare. Latin nouns are divided into different groups according to the patterns of their case endings. These different groups are known as declensions . Nouns with -a in

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1120-589: The three grammatical genders. There are also two numbers : singular ( mulier "woman") and plural ( mulierēs "women"). As well as having gender and number, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns have different endings according to their function in the sentence, for example, rēx "the king" (subject), but rēgem "the king" (object). These different endings are called "cases". Most nouns have five cases: nominative (subject), accusative (object), genitive ("of"), dative ("to" or "for"), and ablative ("with" or "in"). Nouns for people (potential addressees) have

1155-463: The way that it is used in English. The term objective case is then used for the oblique case , which covers the roles of accusative, dative and objects of a preposition. The genitive case is then usually called the possessive form, rather than a noun case per se . English is then said to have two cases: the subjective and the objective. The nominative case marks the subject of a verb. When

1190-721: Was first published in a collection of Latin Grammarians printed at Venice by Nicolas Jenson in about 1476. The best edition of Diomedes's Ars Grammatica is in Grammatici Latini vol. I by Heinrich Keil . In around the 790s, Alcuin of York composed an Ars grammatica as the first of a group of four opera didascalica ('educational works') in question-and-answer form rooted in Donatus's Ars grammatica . The other three texts were De orthographia , Ars rhetorica , and De dialectica . Alcuin's Ars grammatica begins with

1225-404: 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. In active–stative languages , there is a case, sometimes called nominative, that is the most marked case and

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