English grammar. Cases of nouns

Theme: Noun. Cases оf Nouns

PLAN

• 1. Cases Of Nouns.
• 2. Declension of Nouns.

NOUN

• Noun is a part of speech which means a living creature, a thing, or an abstract idea.

Declension

• In Ukrainian nouns decline.
• Declension is a change in the ending of a noun to denote its function in the sentence.
• The endings a noun can acquire depending on its function in the sentence are called cases.

Declension

• The Nominative case of a noun is its base form, so the gender of a noun is determined in this case. The Nominative case endings have been given above when dealing with the gender of nouns.

The Nominative case of a noun is its base form, so the gender of a noun is determined in this case. The Nominative case endings have been given when dealing with the gender of nouns.

The use of the Nominative case

• A noun in the Nominative case is used in the sentence as the subject: (Maria is my friend.)

Case Examples Translation

Nominative sister

Comments

This is the case of the subject in a sentence and the form in which nouns are listed in the dictionary.

Case Examples Translation

• Genitive I have no sister. I came without (my) sister
• Comments
• You should learn the (I don't have...) combination as a whole since it has a different structure (not a word by word translation by far). The genitive case is often used with negative verbs.

Case Examples Translation

• Dative I'm calling (my) sister .

Case Examples

• Accusative
• Translation I'll meet (my) sister at the train station. I'm looking for (my) sister. I'm looking at (my) sister.

Comments

This case is used with (3rd example here) and without (1st & 2nd examples) prepositions.

Case Examples

• Instrumental
• Translation I admire (my) sister. I will come with (my) sister.

Comments

This case often indicates the means of doing something, e.g., - I'm going by train - the masculine noun "train" is in the instrumental case. It is also used with some prepositions (example 2).

Case Examples

• Prepositional На сестрі красива сукня.

Translation My sister is wearing a beautiful dress. (literally: There's a beautiful dress on (my) sister .)

Comments

Used only with prepositions. Also called "locative," this case often describes a place in its broadest sence: location, destination, etc.

Case Examples

Translation

Sister!

Comments

Used to address people.

The Vocative case (Voc.)

The use of the Vocative case

The Vocative case is used to address:

• living beings: (Maria, where are you?)
• personified things: (Ukraine, my land!)

• Most of the types consist of 3 different subgroups: hard, mixed, and soft . The soft subgroup consists of nouns whose roots end in a soft letter (followed by iotified vowel or soft vowel). The mixed subgroup consists of the nouns whose roots end in a post-alveolar sibilant or occasionally r . The hard group consists of all other nouns.
• If the hard group endings are taken as the basis, then the following rules can be used to derived the corresponding mixed and soft endings

• Mixed subgroup

• All o following a post-alveolar sibilant change to e . All y following a post-alveolar sibilant change to i .
• All o following a post-alveolar sibilant change to e .
• All y following a post-alveolar sibilant change to i .

• Soft subgroup: Whenever a soft sign or the semi-vowel encounters the vowel of the ending, the following changes occur (These are mainly orthographic changes):

First declension

• This declension consists of nouns which end in а or я . It consists primarily of feminine nouns, but a few nouns with these ending referring to professions can be either masculine or feminine.

Second declension

• The second declension consists of masculine and neuter nouns.
• Masculine Nouns : This group consists primarily of nouns, which end in a consonant, a soft sign, ь , or й . It should be noted that in the masculine declension, nouns, which end in р can belong to any of the three declension subgroups: hard, mixed, and soft

• Neuter Nouns In this category belong neuter nouns ending in о , е , and those substantives ending in я , preceded by either a double consonant, apostrophe, or two consonants, which primarily are derived from verbs.

Third declension

• This declension consists solely of feminine nouns that end in a consonant. This declension has only 2 subgroups: a mixed and soft group.

Fourth declension

• This declension consists of solely neuter nouns that are derived from Common Slavic *ę . There are two subgroups: those with an н insert, and those with a т insert.