In Latin, what is the difference between a conjugation and a declension?
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M$2 Answers
Amare - to Love]
Amo Love
Amas Love
Amat Loves
etc
A Noun is declined:
Puer - Boy
Puerus boy does something
Puerum is done to the boy
Pueri the boy 9The boy's cat etc)
Latin at High School
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M$When you inflect verbs, it is called "conjugation"
Example. opto, optare, optavi, optatus,-a,-um "to desire" (this is a first conjugation verb denoted by the -are ending in its infinitive form (note infinitive form as the 2nd principal part out of the four given in the example); there are 4 conjugation forms in total: 2nd: -êre (long e); 3rd: -ere (short e); 4th:
-ire (long i). Each is conjugated differently.)
Here is the present tense of the verb fully conjugated with their respective meanings (there are 6 tenses, all which would have different conjugated forms).
opto - I desire
optas - You (singular) desire
optat - he/she/it desires
optamus we desire
optatis - you (pl. ie, you all) desire
optant - they desire
When you inflect a noun it's called "declining." It is declined into cases which defines the function of the noun in a sentence (i.e., whether it's the subject, object, indirect object, etc). As verbs have 4 forms of conjugations, nouns have five. Here's an example from a second declension noun -
puer, pueri m. - boy (note that the noun is presented with it's nominative, then genitive forms, followed by the gender "masculine"; these determine what type of declension the noun fits into. res, rei, n., thing; event, affair, business fits into the fifth declension as determined by the -ei ending in the genitive form.
Cases ~ I will also try to give short functions of the cases
Nominative : puer (usually the subject of a sentence)
Genitive : pueri (can be possessive; translated as "of the boy" i.e., signum pueri "sign of the boy")
Dative: puero (refers to the boy, usually translated with "for/to/ the boy" think of it as the indirect objects)
Accusative: puerum (motion towards the boy, also direct object "puerum opto = I desire the boy"
Ablative: puero ( a lot of things are done with ablative; such as instrumental "Optor puero = I am desired by the boy"
The cases above are all in the singular form. The plural forms, however, are declined differently. Here they are -
Nom. pueri
Gen. puerorum
Dat. pueris
Acc. pueros
Abl. pueris
Learn during undergraduate years at UCLA. Minor in Latin
I used to confirm definitions and some forms.
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M$
They are declined to match the case of the verb, and also so that fewer prepositions and personal pronouns need to be used.
Veni, Vidi, Vici
- I came I saw I conquered, six words in English, 3 in Latin.
That is the benefit of a classical education !
I'm not to familiar with cases, could you expand on how those work in Latin? I know that English still preserves a couple from Old English (like in the case of "I" and "me"), but the concept is otherwise unfamiliar...
Oh! That makes sense, thank you! An additional question though - why are nouns declined? Are there cases in Latin as well?