Latin

Latin: "Latin"
Main features

Latin is a synthetic or inflectional language: affixes are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, which is called declension; and person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect in verbs, which is called conjugation. There are five declensions of nouns and four conjugations of verbs.

The six noun cases are:

1. nominative (used of the subject of the verb),
2. genitive (used to indicate relation or possession),
3. dative (used of the indirect object of the verb, often represented by the English "to" or "for"),
4. accusative (used of the direct object of the verb),
5. ablative (separation, source, cause, or instrument, often represented by the English "by", "with", "from"),
6. vocative (used of the person or thing being addressed).


In addition, there exists in some nouns a locative case used to express place (normally expressed by the ablative with a preposition such as IN), but this hold-over from Indo-European is only found in the names of lakes, cities, towns, similar locales, and a few other words.