Message: "Re: I need help with the origin of 'Lydiam'"

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Re: I need help with the origin of 'Lydiam'

by Lydiam (guest)

10/19/2006, 6:27 PM

in reply to a message by Cleveland Kent Evans

Oh thank you... I'll look into that novel. What do you mean by "declined", do you mean minamized? The equal of calling someone little Lydiam? Thank you again for your help.

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- Cleveland Kent Evans (clevelandkentevans) +1

10/19/2006, 7:49 PM

No, this would refer to a different part of speech, not a diminutive. I am afraid I don't know Latin or grammatical terms well enough to be sure I'm using the correct language, but the form of the name (as well as other nouns) would change depending on what part of speech it was in the sentence -- subject, object, etc.

- Anneza

10/19/2006, 11:24 PM

Decline is correct for nouns and adjectives. The Romans (and for all I know the Greeks) imagines the basic form - the nominative, used for the subject of a sentence (ANNA bit Lucia) at the top of a perpendicular stick like a shadow stick. The other grammatical cases (accusative for the direct object, genitive for the possessive, dative for the indirect object, ablative for various prepositional meanings) were then said to decline or fall over in sequence! Very visual ...
ANNA bit Lucia - nominative
ANNA, stop biting your sister! (Vocative)
Anna bit LUCIAM (Accusative. You can also say: Luciam bit Anna, with no ambiguity but with added emphasis - maybe Anne usually chomps Martha instead ...)
Anna gave a bite LUCIAE (to Lucy = Dative = indirect object)
Anna took the doll LUCIA (Ablative = by, with or in this case - from Lucy. In Latin it would actually need a separate preposition but the principle is the same. And the A in Lucia here is a long sound!)

Same in the plural; same in all five declensions. Aren't we lucky to live when we do!

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