Quote:
Originally Posted by Perikles
Yes - This is all quite straightforward, and I think the problem is your understanding of 'declination'.
Declination is the inflection of a noun to describe its grammatical function. The form of the word changes to describe whether it is the subject, object, indirect object, or governed by a preposition. Some languages inflect strongly (Latin, Greek) some weakly (German) and some hardly at all (English).
Take the word table in Latin. If you said 'the table is in the corner' the word is mensa. If you said 'I made that table', it would be mensam. If you said 'the legs of that table are blue', it would be mensae and so on. If you were talking to Brutus, and saying 'and you too, Brutus' you would say et tu Brute? because the name declines to reflect the fact you are talking directly to somebody.
German does something similar (sometimes). English nouns only decline in the genitive case denoting possession. I like John. I like John's house. The 's is short for es which is a Saxon genitive.
What you quoted about Spanish nouns has nothing to do with declension, just word formation and general rules for noun endings associated with genders.
This declension doesn't happen in Spanish nouns (but I thought it did in Hebrew  ). The only change is from singular to plural, with a plural ending. So nouns decline only with number.
Was that any help?  |
Oh my god! you are completely right, I just realized it now!!
I did mean the whole time "flexión nominal", jeez!!! somehow the declinación got stuck in my head, because of the conjugación.
So after all, the flexión categories for substantivos are género y número, is that true?? and same goes for the adjectives, which are also in the "flexión" category, not declinación, right??
En las
lenguas flexivas, el
nombre se compone de un
lexema o raíz y posiblemente de otros
morfemas constituyentes o gramaticales de
género,
número o
caso gramatical. Así un nombre tiene una forma u otra en términos de su género, número y a veces caso. El conjunto de formas de una raíz entre las cuales no existen diferencias semánticas sino sólo gramaticales, todas estas variantes forman la llamada
declinación.
And since there is no caso gramatical in spanish (or at least in this category), then its only gender and number, right ??