Chapter 2 of Wheelock focuses on how to put tags on nouns. We’ve talked about how nouns have different roles they play in a sentence, such as subjects and direct objects. We’ve also talked about how noun tags can replace English prepositions such as “to” or “for.”
Latin has five different tags noun tags for the subject, the direct object, the preposition “of”, the preposition “to” or “for,” and adverbial phrases such as “towards the street,” “with a pen.”
These different roles a noun can play in Latin are called cases, and the tags are commonly referred to as “case endings.”
The cases have names derived from Latin, which you will need to learn:
The subject case is called the nominative.
The “of” case is called the genitive
The direct object case is called the accusative.
The “to” or “for” case is called the dative.
The adverbial case is called the ablative.
There is also a sixth case called the vocative. This is for talking to people; saying “Hey, Julius” instead of “Julius is our emperor.” The vocative tag is almost always identical to the nominative tag, so it is not that important to focus on the vocative.
Like verbs, Latin nouns are divided into groups. These groups of nouns are called “declensions.” The declension we learn in this chapter, the first declension, has its tags written out on pages 14-15. Nouns in the first declension are almost always feminine gender.
Adjectives function essentially the same as nouns; if you want to add an adjective to a sentence, you give it the same ending as the noun. (Exceptions to this will come up once we learn the third declension.)
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