The genitive case Flashcards
What is the purpose of the genitive case?
To demonstrate possession.
Which person goes into the genitive?
The possessor/the person who owns.
How is the genitive translated into English?
“x’s” or “of the”.
Explain grammatical ownership
The item in the genitive is always grammatically the owner of the object, even if not literally.
For example:
dominus insularum nunc es.
You are now the master of the islands.
‘Islands (insularum)’ is in the genitive here, thus ‘master (dominus)’, in the nominative, grammatically belongs to the islands, meaning that this translates as ‘the master of the islands’. The literal and grammatical meanings of this sentence are different: whilst grammatically, the island owns the master, literally the master owns the island. As such, it is usually easiest to translate the genitive in the first place as ‘x of the x’.
1st declension singular
-ae
1st declension plural
-arum
2nd declension singular
-i
2nd declension plural
-orum
3rd declension singular
-is
3rd declension plural
-um
4th declension singular
-us
4th declension plural
-uum
5th declension singular
-ei
5th declension plural
-erum
-ae
1st declension singular
