2: Nouns - Declensions and Cases
IN THIS LESSON
What is a declension?
If you’ve ever taken a non-English language course, you might already be familiar with declensions: they’re categories of nouns used to show how a noun functions. Like Oscan, Latin is divided into a five declension system, with special sub-declensions for classes of nouns like i-stems. The declension that a noun belongs to governs how it is formed in its cases (more on that below)
Very similarly to Latin, Oscan has a five-declension system with special sub-declensions for consonants and i-stems. Our understanding of these Oscan declensions only stems from what we can piece together from inscriptions and tablets, and thus, is limited. In fact, the fifth declension is almost not extant at all. Oscan’s declensions are related to archaic Latin and show many of the same endings and mechanics.
Like Latin, Oscan’s first and fourth declensions are mostly based in feminine, while the second is mostly in masculine.
The third declension can be split into consonantal stems and i-stems which have different endings.
What is a case?
A case is a variation of a noun that changes how it is used and functions. Even though the word still has the same meaning (for example, changing the case of a word meaning ‘pizza’ wouldn’t mean that it doesn’t mean pizza (and happiness) anymore). Cases can tell you whether a noun is a subject, object, indirect subject, or even the agent of an action. While English does not make use of an extensive case system, Latin, Greek, and Oscan do. Most commonly, changing the case of a noun simply means a different ending.
An English equivalent for a case would be the ‘s used for possession. When ‘s is added to an end of an English word, the reader knows that that word acts as possessing another. Similarly, when certain endings are seen with Oscan words, the reader can tell how that word is functioning.
Oscan also shares six cases with Latin: the Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and Locative. In the plural, the Dative, Ablative, and Locative are declined identically.
Moreover, declensions also affect adjectives. As adjectives describe nouns, adjectives will match with the noun they describe in their case.
If this sounds confusing now, don’t worry! We’ll walk you through it later.