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A special case is the word you: originally, ye was its nominative form and you the accusative, but over time, you has come to be used for the nominative as well. The term "nominative case" is most properly used in the discussion of nominative–accusative languages, such as Latin, Greek and most modern Western European languages.
An example of a Latin case inflection is given below, using the singular forms of the Latin term for "cook", which belongs to Latin's second declension class. coqu us ( nominative ) "[the] cook" [as a subject] (e.g. coquus ibī stat – the cook is standing there)
The nominative singular ends in -i, the other singular cases end in -a or -ja. The noun is derived from the present participle of a verb, in which case the plural ends in -ur (but the singular follows the -i-a rule). An example of the latter is nemandi (student), plural nemendur.
Most nouns in English have distinct singular and plural forms. Nouns and most noun phrases can form a possessive construction. Plurality is most commonly shown by the ending-s (or -es), whereas possession is always shown by the enclitic-'s or, for plural forms ending in s, by just an apostrophe. Consider, for example, the forms of the noun girl.
In the example below, 'son' and 'good' agree in nominative case because they are the subject of the sentence and at the same time they agree in gender because the ending is masculine. Likewise, 'the dog' and 'wild' share the same morphemes that show they agree in accusative case and masculine gender.
There are two principal parts for Latin nouns: the nominative singular and the genitive singular. Each declension can be unequivocally identified by the ending of the genitive singular (-ae, -i, -is, -ūs, -ei). The stem of the noun can be identified by the form of the genitive singular as well. There are five declensions for Latin nouns:
Usually, in borrowing words from Latin, the endings of the nominative are used: nouns whose nominative singular ends in -a (first declension) have plurals in -ae (anima, animae); nouns whose nominative singular ends in -um (second declension neuter) have plurals in -a (stadium, stadia; datum, data). (For a full treatment, see Latin declensions.)
The only difference in their declensions is the masculine accusative singular ending, which is -n in pronouns and -an in adjectives. Genitive and dative plurals are indistinct in gender for all pronominal and adjectival declensions. The nominative and accusative neuter singular ends in -t when the word's root vowel is short, and -tt when long ...