The nominative case is the form a noun takes when it is the subject of the sentence, the person or thing doing the action.
Can recognize Nominative case in a short Latin prompt
Schau dir diese Beispiele an. Kannst du das grammatische Muster erkennen?
Puella in ātriō stat.
The girl stands in the atrium.
Mārcus est agricola.
Mārcus is a farmer.
Achte auf die hervorgehobenen Teile. Was haben sie gemeinsam?
The nominative case is the form a noun takes when it is the subject of the sentence, the person or thing doing the action. It is also the form you find as the dictionary headword, so it is the first case you meet.
In English we know the subject by position: in "the dog bites the man," "dog" is the subject because it comes first. Latin instead marks the subject with a special ending. That freedom means the subject can sit anywhere in the sentence, and you find it by its ending, not its place.
| Declension | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st (fem.) | puella (the girl) | puellae |
| 2nd (masc.) | servus (the slave) | servī |
| 3rd | rēx (the king) | rēgēs |
The nominative also names the subject after the verb "to be":
The classic English-speaker trap is to assume the first noun in a Latin sentence is the subject. It is not, unless its ending is nominative. In Puellam servus videt, "servus" is the subject (he sees) even though "puellam" comes first. Always check the ending before you decide who is doing what.
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses A1 an
ÜbungsaufgabenPuella in ātriō stat.
The girl stands in the atrium.
Puella is the subject. English marks that by putting it first; Latin marks it with the ending, and can put it anywhere.
Mārcus est agricola.
Mārcus is a farmer.
After 'to be' the complement stays nominative: agricola, not an object form. English does the same in 'it is he' - the form nobody uses any more.
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Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses A1 an