Appendix:Latin second declension
Description
[edit]Latin words of the second declension end in -ī in the genitive singular and end in -us, -r, or -um in the nominative singular. They are usually of masculine or neuter gender. They are also called "o-stem nouns" because they descend from Proto-Indo-European nouns that inflected with a thematic vowel (usually -o-) before their case suffixes.
- Masculines typically end in -us in the nominative singular (e.g. animus, animī). This developed by vowel reduction from earlier /os/, reflecting Proto-Indo-European *-o-s (the thematic vowel *-o- followed by the nominative singular suffix *-s).
- A substantial minority end instead in -r (e.g. vir, virī; puer, puerī; ager, agrī). Final r here is not a suffix; rather, it is part of the noun's stem. The ending *-os was lost by regular sound changes when it came after a short vowel + *r or a consonant + *r. (In the latter case, the *r became syllabic and evolved to -er, as in *agros > *agr̩ > ager.) Because of this sound change, relatively few second-declension masculine nouns end in a short vowel + -rus or consonant + -rus, though some examples do exist, e.g. numerus (from *nomesos, with rhotacism) and cedrus (borrowed from Greek κέδρος (kédros)).
- Neuters almost always end in -um (from earlier *-o-m) in the nominative/accusative singular.
- Feminine second-declension nouns take the same endings as the masculine. They are much less common than the masculines and neuters. Most belong to categories of nouns that are regularly feminine based on their meaning, such as city names or names of trees. In borrowings from Greek, the feminine gender may reflect the gender of the Greek source word.
Latin words borrowed from Ancient Greek’s second declension are inflected with a varying mixture of Greek and Latin endings.
Examples
[edit]| Case | -us, -ī (m) | stem in -r/-er (m) |
-um, -ī (n) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | |||
| nominative | -us | – | -um |
| genitive | -ī1 | ||
| dative | -ō | ||
| accusative | -um | ||
| ablative | -ō | ||
| vocative | -e / -ī2 | – | -um |
| locative | -ī | ||
| Case | Plural | ||
| nominative | -ī | -a | |
| genitive | -ōrum | ||
| dative | -īs | ||
| accusative | -ōs | -a | |
| ablative | -īs | ||
| vocative | -ī | -a | |
| locative | -īs | ||
1In Archaic Latin, words ending in -ius and -ium take the ending -ī in the genitive singular, e.g. in earlier Roman Republic times, fīlius would change to fīlī in the genitive singular (cf. later and nowadays fīliī), and negōtium would change to negōtī (cf. later and nowadays negōtiī).
2In words ending in -ius, the -ius becomes ī, e.g. fīlius becomes fīlī in the vocative singular.
Examples:
N.B.
- The singular vocative of second declension -us nouns is the only place in pure Latin in which the vocative ever differs from the nominative: -e instead of -us. The plural vocative is the same as the nominative. As seen in filius, filiī, however, the vocative singular changes -ius and -ium nominative endings into an -ī, instead of changing the -us ending into an -e and the repeating the -um ending.
- deus, -ī m has several irregular plural forms.
Greek declension
[edit]| Case | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -os/ -us m or f | -on/ -um n | |||
| nominative | -os/ -us | -on/ -um | -ī | -a |
| genitive | -ī | -ōrum | ||
| dative | -ō | -īs | ||
| accusative | -on/ -um | -ōs | -a | |
| ablative | -ō | -īs | ||
| vocative | -e | -on/ -um | -ī | -a |
| locative | -ī | -īs | ||
Examples:
- atomus (-os), -ī, f
- ampelos, -ī, f
- mȳthos, -ī, m
- phaenomenon, -ī, n
N.B.
- Genitive, dative, ablative, locative and usually also the plural are the same as in Latin words; for -os/-us it is like Latin -us and words with stem in r/er, and for -on/-um it is like Latin -um.
- In case of proper nouns and book titles genitive plural -ōn and nominative plural -oe can appear, as in Vergil's Georgicon Libri alias Georgica and in Terence's Adelphoe.