The First Declension & Direct Objects In Latin, nouns change their endings depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. These different forms are called cases. Nouns that share the same set of ending patterns belong to the same declension. 1. Grammatical Cases: Nominative and Accusative Nominative Case: The subject of the sentence (the person or thing performing the action). Accusative Case: The direct object of the sentence (the person or thing receiving the action). In the First Declension (mostly feminine nouns), nominative singular nouns end in -a, while accusative singular nouns end in -am. Paradigm: puella, puellae (f.) – girl Case Singular Plural Function Example Nominative puella puellae Subject Puella cantat. (The girl sings.) Accusative puellam puellas Direct Object Nauta puellam amat. (The sailor loves the girl.) Vocabulary puella, -ae (f.) – girl aqua, -ae (f.) – water via, -ae (f.) – road / way silva, -ae (f.) – forest portat – carries (singular) portant – carry (plural) videt – sees (singular) vident – see (plural) Exercitia: Fill in the Blanks Complete each sentence by filling in the correct Latin noun ending or form based on the English translation provided. Puella portat. (The girl carries water.) Nautae vident. (The sailors see the road.) silvam vident. (The girls see the forest.) Nauta amat. (The sailor loves the girls.) Puella ad ambulat. (The girl walks toward the forest.)