Latin/4th Declension

Salvēte omnēs! Welcome back to Latin for Wikiversity. If you would like to catch up, you can find past lessons in the directory, a classified vocabulary list, and a Memrise course on the right.

In previous lessons we’ve studied nouns of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions. Check the directory to review these lessons! They are foundational to all the rest of the course. With a basic knowledge of the first 3 declensions, or classes, of nouns, we have access to the vast majority of Latin nouns. But there are two more declensions, and although they contain a comparatively much smaller number of nouns, some of them are important and frequently used nouns. So now seems a good time to add those declensions and master their inflected forms.

New Grammar
Let’s start with the 4th declension this week. At first glance, the nominative singular base form of a 4th declension noun looks like the 2nd declension masculine nouns, and the gender of most of these nouns is masculine also. However, all three genders are represented in the 4th declension. Masculine and feminine nouns share the same endings, and the much rarer neuter forms have slight variants. I’m giving the macrons (accents over vowels) in the case table, but it’s not practical for me to do that as a regular thing, so please excuse the inconsistency. The main thing you have to be careful with in this declension is how similar it looks to the 2nd declension. Many of the nouns seem to be derived from related verb forms, e.g. “auditus = hearing”. As with all Latin nouns, you can identify the declension by the genitive singular ending, in this instance –ūs, which is why it is always given in the vocabulary entries.

The following are 4th declension nouns I’ve introduced in previous lessons:

All 4th declension nouns can be assumed to be masculine unless their gender is specifically listed.

Practice
Enough for this time; next lesson will delve into the 5th declension. Please feel free to comment or ask questions on the talk page, and we will do my best to respond. Bonam fortūnam!