Declinações

Declinações, in linguistics, refers to the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and sometimes numerals to express grammatical categories such as case, number, and gender. These inflections indicate the word's function within a sentence and its relationship to other words. The most prominent category of declension is case, which shows the grammatical role of a noun or pronoun, such as subject, object, possessor, or indirect object. Common cases include nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. Number, another crucial aspect of declension, distinguishes between singular and plural forms, and in some languages, dual forms. Gender, while often inherent to the noun, can also be marked by declension, with categories like masculine, feminine, and neuter. Not all languages employ extensive declension systems. For instance, English has largely lost its case declensions, retaining them mainly in pronouns like "I," "me," "my." Languages like Latin, German, and Russian, however, feature highly developed declension paradigms that significantly impact sentence structure and word order. The study of declensions is fundamental to understanding the morphology and syntax of many Indo-European languages and others.