Déclinaisons

Déclinaisons are the sets of inflected forms that a word, particularly a noun, pronoun or adjective, can take to express grammatical categories such as case, number and gender. They represent how a word changes its ending or internal shape to indicate its function in a sentence or its agreement with other words.

In many languages, nouns and adjectives decline to mark their role in a sentence. The case system often determines function, such as subject, direct object, possession or means, while number indicates singular or plural. Gender may also influence the form of related adjectives or determiners. Declensions are distinct from verb conjugations, which encode tense, mood, aspect, voice and agreement with subject.

Languages vary in how extensive their declension systems are. Latin, for example, features multiple noun declensions, each with a full set of cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and often vocative). German uses four cases and gendered nouns, with corresponding adjective and article endings. Russian employs a rich system of noun and adjective declensions across six or seven cases. Some languages have simplified or irregular declensions, and others rely more on word order than on endings to convey grammatical relations.

Declension paradigms are typically organized into classes or patterns, guiding how forms change across cases and numbers. Mastery of declensions is essential for accurate syntax, historical and comparative linguistics, and the interpretation of texts in highly inflected languages.