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Declensions may apply to [[noun]]s, [[pronoun]]s, [[adjective]]s, [[adverb]]s, and [[article (grammar)|articles]] to indicate [[grammatical number|number]] (e.g. singular, dual, plural), [[grammatical case|case]] (e.g. [[nominative case]], [[accusative case]], [[genitive case]], [[dative case]]), [[grammatical gender|gender]] (e.g. masculine, neuter, feminine), and a number of other [[grammatical categories]]. |
Declensions may apply to [[noun]]s, [[pronoun]]s, [[adjective]]s, [[adverb]]s, and [[article (grammar)|articles]] to indicate [[grammatical number|number]] (e.g. singular, dual, plural), [[grammatical case|case]] (e.g. [[nominative case]], [[accusative case]], [[genitive case]], [[dative case]]), [[grammatical gender|gender]] (e.g. masculine, neuter, feminine), and a number of other [[grammatical categories]]. |
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Declension occurs in many of the world's languages. Declension is an important aspect of language families like [[Indigenous languages of the Americas|American]] (such as [[Quechuan languages|Quechuan]]), [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] ([[German language|German]], [[Slavic languages|Slavic]], [[Sanskrit]], [[Latin]]), [[Bantu languages|Bantu]] ([[Zulu language|Zulu]], [[Kikuyu language|Kikuyu]]), [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] ([[Modern Standard Arabic]]), [[Finno-Ugric languages|Finno-Ugric]] ([[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]]), [[Turkic languages|Turkic]] ([[Turkish language|Turkish]]). |
Declension occurs in many of the world's languages. Declension is an important aspect of language families like [[Indigenous languages of the Americas|American]] (such as [[Quechuan languages|Quechuan]]), [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] ([[German language|German]], ([[Baltic language|Lithuanian, Latvian]], [[Slavic languages|Slavic]], [[Sanskrit]], [[Latin]]), [[Bantu languages|Bantu]] ([[Zulu language|Zulu]], [[Kikuyu language|Kikuyu]]), [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] ([[Modern Standard Arabic]]), [[Finno-Ugric languages|Finno-Ugric]] ([[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]]), [[Turkic languages|Turkic]] ([[Turkish language|Turkish]]). |
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[[Old English]] was an inflectional language, but largely abandoned inflectional changes as it evolved into [[Modern English]]. Though traditionally classified as [[Synthetic language|synthetic]], Modern English has moved towards an [[analytic language]]. |
[[Old English]] was an inflectional language, but largely abandoned inflectional changes as it evolved into [[Modern English]]. Though traditionally classified as [[Synthetic language|synthetic]], Modern English has moved towards an [[analytic language]]. |
Revision as of 16:45, 9 November 2020
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Grammatical features |
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In linguistics, declension is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. The inflectional change of verbs is called conjugation.
Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and articles to indicate number (e.g. singular, dual, plural), case (e.g. nominative case, accusative case, genitive case, dative case), gender (e.g. masculine, neuter, feminine), and a number of other grammatical categories.
Declension occurs in many of the world's languages. Declension is an important aspect of language families like American (such as Quechuan), Indo-European (German, (Lithuanian, Latvian, Slavic, Sanskrit, Latin), Bantu (Zulu, Kikuyu), Semitic (Modern Standard Arabic), Finno-Ugric (Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian), Turkic (Turkish).
Old English was an inflectional language, but largely abandoned inflectional changes as it evolved into Modern English. Though traditionally classified as synthetic, Modern English has moved towards an analytic language.
History
It is agreed that Ancient Greeks had a "vague" idea of the forms of a noun in their language. A fragment of Anacreon seems to confirm this idea. Nevertheless, it cannot be concluded that the Ancient Greeks actually knew what the cases were. The Stoics developed many basic notions that today are the rudiments of linguistics. The idea of grammatical cases is also traced back to the Stoics, but it's still not completely clear what the Stoics exactly meant with their notion of cases.[1][2]
Modern English
In Modern English, the system of declensions is so simple compared to some other languages that the term declension is rarely used. Most nouns in English have distinct singular and plural forms and have distinct plain and possessive forms. Plurality is most commonly shown by the affix -s (or -es), whereas possession is always shown by the clitic -'s (or by just the apostrophe for most plural forms ending in s) attached to the noun. Consider, for example, the forms of the noun girl:
Singular | Plural | |
---|---|---|
Plain | girl | girls |
Possessive | girl's | girls' |
Most speakers pronounce all of the forms other than the singular plain form (girl) exactly the same (though the elided possessive-indicating s of the plural possessive may be realised as [z] in some speakers' pronunciations, being separated from the plural-indicating s normally by a central vowel such as [ɨ̞]). By contrast, a few nouns are slightly more complex in their forms. For example:
Singular | Plural | |
---|---|---|
Plain | man | men |
Possessive | man's | men's |
In that example, all four forms are pronounced distinctly.
There can be other derivations from nouns that are not usually considered declensions. For example, the proper noun Britain has the associated descriptive adjective British and the demonym Briton. Though these words are clearly related and are generally considered cognates, they are not specifically treated as forms of the same word and thus not declensions.
Pronouns in English have even more complex declensions. For example:
Singular | Plural | |
---|---|---|
Subjective | I | we |
Objective | me | us |
Dependent possessive | my | our |
Independent possessive | mine | ours |
Whereas nouns do not distinguish between the subjective (nominative) and objective (oblique) cases, some pronouns do; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a verb or preposition, or case. Consider the difference between he (subjective) and him (objective), as in "He saw it" and "It saw him"; similarly, consider who, which is subjective, and the objective whom (although it is increasingly common to use who for both).
The one situation where gender is still clearly part of the English language is in the pronouns for the third person singular. Consider the following:
Masculine | Feminine | Neuter (non-person) |
Neuter (person) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Subjective | he | she | it | they |
Objective | him | her | them | |
Dependent possessive | his | her | its | their |
Independent possessive | hers | theirs |
The distinguishing of neuter for persons and non-persons is peculiar to English. This has existed since the 14th century.[3][4] However, the use of the so-called singular they is often restricted to specific contexts, depending on the dialect or the speaker. It is most typically used to refer to a single person of unknown gender (e.g., "someone left their jacket behind") or a hypothetical person where gender is insignificant (e.g., "If someone wants to, then they should"). Its use has expanded in recent years due to increasing social recognition of persons who do not identify themselves as male or female.[5] Note that the singular they still uses plural verb forms, reflecting its origins.
For nouns, in general, gender is not declined in Modern English, or at best one could argue there are isolated situations certain nouns may be modified to reflect gender, though not in a systematic fashion. Loan words from other languages, particularly Latin and the Romance languages, often preserve their gender-specific forms in English, e.g. alumnus (masculine singular) and alumna (feminine singular). Similarly, names borrowed from other languages show comparable distinctions: Andrew and Andrea, Paul and Paula, etc. Additionally, suffixes such as -ess, -ette, and -er are sometimes applied to create overtly gendered versions of nouns, with marking for feminine being much more common than marking for masculine. Many nouns can actually function as members of two genders or even all three, and the gender classes of English nouns are usually determined by their agreement with pronouns, rather than marking on the nouns themselves.
Most adjectives are not declined. However, when used as nouns rather than adjectives, they do decline (e.g., "I'll take the reds", meaning "I'll take the red ones" or as shorthand for "I'll take the red wines"). Also, the demonstrative determiners this and that are declined for number, as these and those. Some adjectives borrowed from other languages are, or can be, declined for gender, at least in writing: blond (male) and blonde (female). Adjectives are not declined for case in Modern English, though they were in Old English. The article is never regarded as declined in Modern English, although formally, the words that and possibly she correspond to forms of the predecessor of the (sē m., þæt n., sēo f.) as it was declined in Old English.
Latin
Just as verbs in Latin are conjugated to indicate grammatical information, Latin nouns and adjectives that modify them are declined to signal their roles in sentences. There are five important cases for Latin nouns: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. Since the vocative case usually takes the same form as the nominative, it is seldom spelt out in grammar books.[dubious – discuss] Yet another case, the locative, is limited to a small number of words.
The usual basic functions of these cases are as follows:
- Nominative case indicates the subject.
- Genitive case indicates possession and can be translated with ‘of’.
- Dative case marks the indirect object and can be translated with ‘to’ or ‘for’.
- Accusative case marks the direct object.
- Ablative case is used to modify verbs and can be translated as ‘by’, ‘with’, ‘from’, etc.
- Vocative case is used to address a person or thing.
The genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative also have important functions to indicate the object of a preposition.
Given below is the declension paradigm of Latin puer ‘boy’ and puella ‘girl’:
Case | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nominative | puer | puerī | puella | puellae |
Genitive | puerī | puerōrum | puellae | puellārum |
Dative | puerō | puerīs | puellae | puellīs |
Accusative | puerum | puerōs | puellam | puellās |
Ablative | puerō | puerīs | puellā | puellīs |
Vocative | puer | puerī | puella | puellae |
From the provided examples we can see how cases work:
- liber puerī → the book of the boy (puerī boy=genitive)
- puer puellae rosam dat → the boy gives the girl a rose (puer boy=nominative; puellae girl=dative; rosam rose=accusative; dat give=third person singular present)
Hindi
Hindi has three noun cases (nominative, oblique, and vocative)[6][7]and five pronoun cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and oblique). The oblique case in pronouns has three subdivisions: Regular, Ergative, and Genitive. There are eight case-marking postpositions in Hindi and out of those eight the ones which end in the vowel -ā (the semblative and the genitive postpositions) also decline according to number, gender, and case.[8][9]
Nouns
All the case declension paradigms for nouns are shown below:
Case | Masculine | Feminine | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ending in -ā | ending in -i/ī | ending in -u/ū | ending in -ø | ending in -i/ī | ending in -ā | ending in -ø | ||||||||
Boy | Man | Knife | Tree | Girl | Mother | Train | ||||||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | लड़का
laɽkā |
लड़के
laɽke |
आदमी
ādmī |
आदमी
ādmī |
चाकू
chakū |
चाकू
chakū |
पेड़
peɽ |
पेड़
peɽ |
लड़की
laɽkī |
लड़कियाँ
laɽkiyā̃ |
माता
mātā |
माताएँ
mātāẽ |
ट्रेन
ʈren |
ट्रेनें
ʈrenẽ |
Oblique | लड़के
laɽke |
लड़कों
laɽkõ |
आदमियों
ādmiyõ |
चाकुओं
chākuõ |
पेड़ों
peɽõ |
लड़कियों
laɽkiyõ |
माताओं
mātāõ |
ट्रेनों
ʈrenõ | ||||||
Vocative | लड़को
laɽko |
आदमियो
ādmiyo |
चाकुओ
chākuo |
पेड़ो
peɽo |
लड़कियो
laɽkiyo |
माताओ
mātāo |
ट्रेनो
ʈreno |
Note: -ø represents any word-ending other than the ones mentioned in the paradigms above.
Pronouns
Case | Personal | Demonstrative | Relative | Interrogative | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | ||||||||||||||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Proximal | Non-proximal | Singular | Plural | Formal | Singular | Plural | Formal | |||||||
Intimate | Familiar | Formal | Singular | Plural | Formal | Singular | Plural | Formal | ||||||||||
Nominative | मैं
mɛ̃ |
हम
ham |
तू
tū |
तुम
tum |
आप
āp |
यह
yah |
ये
ye |
वह
vah |
वे
ve |
जो
jo |
कौन, क्या
kaun, kyā | |||||||
ये
ye |
वो
vo | |||||||||||||||||
Dative | मुझे
mujhe |
हमें
hamẽ |
तुझे
tujhe |
तुम्हें
tumhẽ |
— | इसे
ise |
इन्हें
inhẽ |
उसे
use |
उन्हें
unhẽ |
जिसे
jise |
जिन्हें
jinhẽ |
किसे
kise |
किन्हें
kinhẽ | |||||
Accusative | ||||||||||||||||||
Genitive | मेरा
merā |
हमारा
hamārā |
तेरा
terā |
तुम्हारा
tumhārā |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||||
Oblique | Regular | मुझ
mujh |
हम
ham |
तुझ
tujh |
तुम
tum |
आप
āp |
इस
is |
इन
in |
उस
us |
उन
un |
जिस
jis |
जिन
jin |
किस
kis |
किन
kin | ||||
Ergative | मैं
mãĩ |
तू
tū |
इन्हों
inhõ |
उन्हों
unhõ |
जिन्हों
jinhõ |
किन्हों
kinhõ | ||||||||||||
Genitive | मेरे
mere |
हमारे
hamāre |
तेरे
tere |
तुम्हारे
tumhāre |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Postpositions
The case-marking postpositions of Hindi are mentioned in the table below on the left, and the declensions of the genitive and semblative postpositions are on the right:
|
|
Example sentence using noun, pronoun, and postpositional declensions:
Hindi | कोई | बोला | कि | बड़े से | पेड़ों को | लड़के ने | लकड़ी की | कुल्हाड़ी से | धुप में | दो से | चार बजे तक | कुर्सी पे | खड़े होके | काटा। |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Transliternation | koī | bolā | ki | baɽe se | peɽõ ko | laɽke ne | lakɽī kī | kulhāɽī se | dhūp mẽ | do se | chār tak | kursī pe | khaɽe hoke | kāʈā. |
Meaning | someone | said | that | big | trees | boy | wood | axe | sun | two | four | chair | standing | cut. |
Case/Function | nominative | perfective | conjunction | semblative | accusative | ergative | genitive | instrumental | inessive | ablative | terminative | adessive | conjunctive | perfective |
Translation | "Someone said that a boy cut the big trees with a wooden axe in the sun from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock by standing on a chair." |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit, another Indo-European language, has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative and instrumental.[10] Some do not count vocative as a separate case, despite it having a distinctive ending in the singular, but consider it as a different use of the nominative.[11]
Sanskrit grammatical cases have been analyzed extensively. The grammarian Pāṇini identified six semantic roles or karaka, which correspond closely to the eight cases:[12]
- agent (kartṛ, related to the nominative)
- patient (karman, related to the accusative)
- means (karaṇa, related to the instrumental)
- recipient (sampradāna, related to the dative)
- source (apādāna, related to the ablative)
- relation (sambandha, related to genitive)
- locus (adhikaraṇa, related to the locative)
- address (sambodhana, related to the vocative)
For example, consider the following sentence:
vṛkṣ-āt parṇ-aṁ bhūm-au patati from the tree a leaf to the ground falls
Here leaf is the agent, tree is the source, and ground is the locus. The endings -aṁ, -at, -āu mark the cases associated with these meanings.
See also
Declension in specific languages
- Arabic ʾIʿrab
- Basque declension
- Czech declension
- Dutch declension system
- Finnish language noun cases
- German declension
- Gothic declension
- Greek declension
- Icelandic declension
- Irish declension
- Latin declension
- Latvian declension
- Lithuanian declension
- Middle English declension
- Polish declension
- Russian declension
- Slovak declension
- Slovene declension
- Ukrainian declension
Latin and Greek
Related topics
References
- ^ Frede, Michael (1994). "The Stoic Notion of a Grammatical Case". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 39: 13–24. doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1994.tb00449.x. JSTOR 43646836.
- ^ http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/linguaggio
- ^ Fowler, H.W. (2015). Butterfield, Jeremy (ed.). Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. p. 814. ISBN 978-0-19-966135-0.
- ^ Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 494. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
- ^ Andrews, Travis M. (March 28, 2017). "The singular, gender-neutral 'they' added to the Associated Press Stylebook". Washington Post.
- ^ "Hindi Noun Cases". hindilanguage.info. 2012-04-19. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226198692_Ergative_Case-marking_in_Hindi
- ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226198692_Ergative_Case-marking_in_Hindi
- ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267724707_CASE_IN_HINDI
- ^ James Clackson (2007) Indo-European linguistics: an introduction, p.90
- ^ Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf (eds), Sanskrit Computational Linguistics: First and Second International Symposia Rocquencourt, France, October 29-31, 2007 and Providence, RI, USA, May 15-17, 2008, Revised Selected Papers, Volume 5402 of Lecture notes in artificial intelligence, Springer, 2009, ISBN 3-642-00154-8, pp. 64–68.
- ^ Pieter Cornelis Verhagen, Handbook of oriental studies: India. A history of Sanskrit grammatical literature in Tibet, Volume 2, BRILL, 2001, ISBN 90-04-11882-9, p. 281.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg/40px-Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg.png)
- The Status of Morphological Case in the Icelandic Lexicon by Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson. Discussion of whether cases convey any inherent syntactic or semantic meaning.
- Optimal Case: The Distribution of Case in German and Icelandic by Dieter Wunderlich
- Lexicon of Linguistics: Declension
- Lexicon of Linguistics: Base, Stem, Root
- Lexicon of Linguistics: Defective Paradigm
- Lexicon of Linguistics: Strong Verb
- Lexicon of Linguistics: Inflection Phrase (IP), INFL, AGR, Tense
- Lexicon of Linguistics: Lexicalist Hypothesis
- classical Greek declension