What is 'declension'?

Answer 1

The word 'declension' describes a process in languages that use case endings to show the relationship of the parts of speech to the verb and to the rest of the sentence. For example, case endings identify whether a noun is the subject in the nominative case, an object of possession in the genitive, the direct or indirect object of the main verb in the accusative and dative cases respectively, or a prepositional object in the ablative case. The formal process of declension includes the singular and plural forms of each case; and the feminine, masculine and neuter forms.

A declension is a method of inflecting a noun, pronoun, or adjective, generally according to a systematic order. As a consequence, the noun in question takes different forms that identify its position within the sentence. For example, in Latin, a noun may have nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, or ablative case endings. The different endings change the look of the noun. But they're necessary in telling listeners and readers of the relationship of the particular noun to the verb and to the rest of the sentence.

Answer 2

Declension organizes the non-verbal parts of speech so as to indicate case endings gender, and number. Case endings help relate the different parts of speech to the verb, and to the rest of the sentence. In the specific example of Latin, the cases are called as follows: nominative, for the subject of the sentence; genitive, to show possession; dative, for the indirect object; accusative, for the direct object; and ablative, for objects of prepositions. Gender indicates whether an object or person is feminine, masculine, or neuter. And number indicates whether the object or person is singular, in the case of one; or plural, in the case of more than one. In contrast to Latin, declension isn't strong in English. There are traces of its influence in the differentiation between singular and plural. There are even fewer traces in the differentiaton between cases. Nowadays, it tends to exist in the pronoun forms of he/him/his, I/me/mine, she/her/hers, they/them/their/theirs, and we/us/our/ours. And there are even rare sightings of gender, other than examples such as blond and blonde.