The Vocative Case

there are five major cases in Latin the nominative generative dative accusative and abative and these cases help show what the noun is doing in the sentence for instance when noun is in the nominative case it's probably the subject of the sentence in the generative it's probably showing possession if you know these five major cases not just the endings but how Latin utilizes these cases in many different ways you'll be fine with Latin but these aren't the only five just the big five there's sixth the vocative case and that's the topic of this video the word vocative comes from the Latin verb woko Ware to call and that's what the vocative case is for it's the case you use when you're calling someone this technically is called the direct address you know the person being talked to here let me illustrate Caesar watch out for those assassins Caesar is the person I'm talking to and so that word word would be put in the evocative case in Latin Cicero how are you doing Cicero again is the person I'm talking to and thus would be in the vocative boy pour me more wine boy vocative and when cisero complains to the gods with immortales he's using the vocative case because he's talking to them okay so it's not technically the subject which would be the nominative case because this noun isn't doing the action of the verb it's actually just identifying who is being talked to and that's the difference between the nominative and vocative the vocative is used to identify the address so know what you're thinking whole other case more endings to memorize why didn't learn the vocative endings when learned the first or third declensions well you don't have to the vocative case is pretty easy if you follow few really simple steps number one the vocative is the same as the nominative for most nouns so if you're talking to your mistress the vocative is still Domina if you're talking to boy it's still puer to dog still kis when Cicero speaks to the Senate he calls them cons so the vocative is identical to the nominative plural you know the vocative is the same as the nominative for every single plural noun but there are few exceptions to this rule so number two the vocative of singular nouns ending in Us in the second declension is short an so the of Brutus is brute like brute of Dominus is Domin and of amus it's amik but rule number three if it's proper name that ends in an IUS like Julius Julius sempronius orgilus the vocative is instead long so yulii and this real works for felius too whose vocative is fi I'm not going to call this rule number four but the only other thing you need to know about the vocative endings is that the adjective mayos but not Maya or may but just the masculine singular form meos is me in the vocative so to say my dear friend you would say my son is MI my Brutus mute but my girl is just mea and my friends are me amiki since the is the case of direct address you know the case for the name or term of the person you're talking to you're going to find it used lot in sentences with the verb in the second person Mar quis Marcus what are you doing you'll also find it use whole heck of lot with imperatives you know commands like and so the evocative case is pretty simple because in most situations the evocative ending is exactly identical to the nominative with second declension singular masculine nouns The Only Exception so if you're going to form the vocative case you can actually do well by working backwards from these rules one if the word is name ending in is or the noun Fus or the adjective mayos the vocative is long where Gil me if not then check to see if the noun ends in just an us like Brutus or Dominus and if so then the vocative is short BR or Dom otherwise the vocative is the same as the nominative like Pua pu we senores or Gladiator