Page:Latin for beginners (1911).djvu/45

LESSON VII

THE FIRST OR Ā-DECLENSION

57. In the preceding lessons we have now gone over all the cases, singular and plural, of nouns whose nominative singular ends in -a. All Latin nouns whose nominative singular ends in -a belong to the First Declension. It is also called the Ā-Declension because of the prominent part which the vowel a plays in the formation of the cases. We have also learned what relations are expressed by each case. These results are summarized in the following table:

Case	Noun	Translation	Use and General Meaning of Each Case
		Singular
Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc. Abl.	do’min-a domin-ae domin-ae domin-am domin-ā	the lady of the lady, or the lady’s to or for the lady the lady from, with, by, in, the lady	The subject The possessor of something Expressing the relation to or for, especially the *indirect object The direct object Separation (from), association or means (with, by), place where or time when (in, at)
		Plural
Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc. Abl.	domin-ae domin-ā’rum domin-īs domin-ās domin-īs	the ladies of the ladies, ox the ladies’ to or for the ladies the ladies from, with, by, in, the ladies	The same as the singular

58. The Base. That part of a word which remains unchanged in inflection and to which the terminations are added is called the base.

Thus, in the declension above, domin- is the base and -a is the termination of the nominative singular.