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You've likely heard of the term conjugation before — the inflection of verbs to show grammatical and syntactic function — but do you know about declension?
Millions of flashcards designed to help you ace your studies
Sign up for freeWhat is another name for the subjective case?
Which sentence has a pronoun in the genitive case?
Which noun is in the genitive case?
Fill in the blank:Declension is to nouns what _____ is to verbs.
Select the group of objective case pronouns
Which word classes can go through the declension process?
True or false, English nouns are typically declined to show gender?
True or false, declension is more common in German than in English?
How can we decline adjectives to show the superlative form?
How can we decline adjectives to show the comparative form?
Choose the best definition for inflection.
What is another name for the subjective case?
Which sentence has a pronoun in the genitive case?
Which noun is in the genitive case?
Fill in the blank:Declension is to nouns what _____ is to verbs.
Select the group of objective case pronouns
Which word classes can go through the declension process?
True or false, English nouns are typically declined to show gender?
True or false, declension is more common in German than in English?
How can we decline adjectives to show the superlative form?
How can we decline adjectives to show the comparative form?
Choose the best definition for inflection.
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Team Declension Teachers
In simple terms, declension is the conjugation of other word classes (such as nouns, pronouns, and adjectives).
Although declension isn't as common in English as it is in other languages, such as Latin or German, it's still important to understand how we decline nouns and pronouns to show things like case and number.
Let's begin by looking at the meaning of the word declension.
The term declension refers to the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and articles (basically, every word class except verbs) to show the word's syntactic function within a sentence. When we say syntactic function, we're referring to the grammatical relationship between constituents (part of a sentence, e.g., words, phrases, and clauses) within a sentence.
Inflection: A morphological process that involves adding affixes to a word or changing a word's spelling to show different grammatical functions, such as case, number, or person.
The inflection of verbs is called conjugation.
The declension process can be seen when we discuss possessives. For example, when the subject of a sentence owns the object of a sentence, possession is shown by inflecting the subject (remember, the subject of a sentence is usually a noun or pronoun). The declension process typically involves adding an apostrophe and an s to the end of a noun or changing the spelling of the pronoun altogether.
"That is Katy's cake."
Here, we can see that the noun Katy has undergone a declension process in order to show the relationship between the subject (Katy) and the object (the cake).
Declension happens across many languages, and the process works differently in each. For example, adjectives in French and Spanish go through a declension process to show grammatical case, but adjectives in English do not. In fact, declension in English is no longer common. Whereas Old and Middle English contained a lot of declensions, in Modern English, declension only applies to nouns, pronouns, and descriptive adjectives.
Good to know: Declension is a noun — the verb is to decline.
Fig 1. That's Katy's cake.
As we mentioned, declensions in English aren't as common as in other languages, but that doesn't mean they aren't important.
In Modern English, declension typically happens to nouns and pronouns; however, we can also decline adjectives too.
In English, the declension of nouns and pronouns can show three different syntactic and grammatical functions: case, number, and gender.
There are three different grammatical cases in English, subjective (aka nominative), objective, and genitive (aka possessive).
In English, nouns only go through a declension process in the genitive case, whereas pronouns change in all three cases. Let's take a closer look at each of these cases.
Although there are several different types of pronouns (e.g., relative, demonstrative, etc.), when discussing pronouns in different cases, we are usually talking about personal pronouns.
A noun or pronoun is in the subjective case when it is acting as the subject of the sentence. The subject of a sentence is the person or thing performing the action of a verb or who/what the sentence is about.
"Katy ate the cake."
Here, Katy is the subject of the sentence. As Katy is a proper noun, the word does not need to be inflected at all.
Let's now look at some examples of pronouns as the subject:
"She is on her way to college."
"He drove here."
"They are enjoying a meal together."
Here we can see that the subjective case pronouns are:
He
She
They
It
I
We
You
The subjective case is sometimes called the nominative case.
A noun or pronoun is in the objective case when it's acting as, you guessed it, the object in a sentence. The object of a sentence is the person or thing that is being acted upon.
"She gave the cake to Katy."
In this sentence, Katy is now the subject, but, as you can see, the word has not changed.
Here are some examples with a pronoun as the subject. Notice how the spelling and words change:
"She gave the cake to her."
"The teacher told him to be quiet."
"He wanted them to be happy together."
From the examples, we can see that the pronouns in the objective case are:
Him
Her
Them
It
Us
Me
You
The genitive case, also known as the possessive case, is used to show a noun or pronoun's belongings.
In the genitive case, both nouns and pronouns go through a declension process. Let's start with nouns.
To show a noun's possession in English, we simply add an apostrophe and an s to the end of the word.
"Hey, that cake is not yours! It's Katy's."
Now for the pronouns. There are two different types of pronouns in the genitive case: attributive and predicative. Possessive attributive pronouns are typically followed by a noun, whereas possessive predicative pronouns replace the noun.
The attributive pronouns are: my, his, her, its, our, your, and their
The predicative pronouns are: mine, his, hers, ours, yours, and theirs
"The cake is hers."
"She gave them their books."
"That's mine."
"Don't forget your umbrella!"
Nouns are declined in terms of number into their singular and plural forms. Regular nouns are declined by simply adding an s to the end of the word, whereas irregular nouns go through a spelling change (or sometimes remain exactly as they are, e.g., sheep.)
Regular nouns:
Apple → Apples
Book → Books
Girl → Girls
Tree → Trees
Irregular nouns:
Man → Men
Foot → Feet
Fish → Fish
Child → Children
Fish vs. Fishes
Did you know that the term fishes is correct in some situations?
When there is more than one of the same species of fish, the plural form is fish. However, when there are many different species of fish, the plural form is fishes.
= fish
= fishes
Fig 2. Fish, not Fishes.
Demonstrative pronouns also go through a declension process to show number. The singular demonstrative pronouns are this and that. On the other hand, the plural demonstrative pronouns are these and those.
Unlike other languages, like French or Spanish, English nouns typically are not declined in relation to gender. Sometimes suffixes are added to the end of a noun to highlight the female gender (e.g., stewardess); however, this is quickly becoming redundant in modern society.
Personal pronouns can decline to show gender. The masculine pronouns are he, him, and his, and the feminine pronouns are she, her, and hers. The pronouns they, them, their, and theirs can be used as plural or singular gender-neutral pronouns.
Descriptive adjectives (adjectives that modify nouns/pronouns by describing them) can go through a declension process to show degrees of comparison.
Descriptive adjectives typically have three forms: positive (base form), comparative, and superlative. For comparatives, we typically add the suffix "-er" to the end of the word. For superlatives, we add the suffix "-est."
Positive: Big
Comparative: Bigger
Superlative: Biggest
Positive: Old
Comparative: Older
Superlative: Oldest
For adjectives that have more than two syllables, we typically place the adverbs more or most before the adjective rather than adding suffixes.
Now we know all about declensions, let's recap what we've learned by looking at some handy charts with declension examples in English.
Case:
| Subjective Case | Objective Case | Genitive Case |
| He | Him | His |
| She | Her | Her/Hers |
| It | It | Its |
| They | Them | Their/Thiers |
| You | You | Your/Yours |
| We | Us | Our/Ours |
| Katy | Katy | Katy's |
Gender:
| Masculine Pronouns | Feminine Pronouns | Gender Neutral Pronouns |
| He | She | They |
| Him | Her | Them |
| His | Her/Hers | Their/Theirs |
Number:
| Singular Nouns/pronouns | Plural Nouns/pronouns |
| Book | Books |
| Foot | Feet |
| This | These |
| That | Those |
Adjectives:
| Positive | Comparative | Superlative |
| Young | Younger | Youngest |
| Tall | Taller | Tallest |
| Expensive | More expensive | Most expensive |
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What is an example of declension?
An example of declension is adding the suffix -s to the end of a noun to show plurality.
Does English have declension?
Yes, Modern English does use some declensions. Typically, nouns and pronouns are declined to show case, number, and gender.
What is the difference between conjugation and declension?
Both conjugation and declension refer to the inflection process. Conjugation is the inflection of verbs, whereas declension is the inflection of all other word classes.
What are declensions used for?
In English, declensions are most commonly used to show case, number, and gender. For example, the pronoun hers is in the genitive case and shows possession.
Why did English lose declensions?
The reason declensions became less prominent in English is not entirely known. It may be because of the influence from Old Norse, or because the pronunciation of declined words became too complex.
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