# Declension without case



## Dymn

Hi,

I wonder if there is a specific definition for the term _declension _that is accepted among linguists. Does it cover nominal or adjectival inflection in paradigms without case? Think for example Spanish _bueno-buena-buenos-buenas_, with variation according to gender and number_. _Is this a declension, technically-speaking?

Thank you


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## elroy

Sí, Señor.  Declension is to nouns and adjectives what conjugation is to verbs.  Both include all types of inflections.  That said, “declension” _tends_ to be used to refer specifically to case.  But that’s convention, not definition.


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## bearded

elroy said:


> to nouns and adjectives


... and pronouns (lo, le, las, les..).


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## berndf

elroy said:


> That said, “declension” _tends_ to be used to refer specifically to case.


I use declension equally for all types of inflection of declinable words (substantives, adjectives, pronouns and articles). It would be news to me that the term implied a particular focus on cases.


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## elroy

You are not representative of most people.   Learners of Spanish generally do not use the term "declension" to refer to gender and number inflections, while learners of Russian do use the term frequently to refer to case inflections.  There's a very good reason @Dymn asked the question.


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## Perseas

elroy said:


> Sí, Señor.  Declension is to nouns and adjectives what conjugation is to verbs.  Both include all types of inflections.  That said, “declension” _tends_ to be used to refer specifically to case.  But that’s convention, not definition.


Same in Greek. We usually associate declension with cases, but actually it refers to all the forms a declinable word can take (except that we also use the same word for the verbs: κλίση).


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## Penyafort

Declension is usually reserved for casual inflection indeed, and I guess it could be due to an association of case with syntactical function rather than mere agreement.


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## Dymn

In most Romance languages nouns and adjectives have little inflection so it's not common to talk about declension. Most people associate it with Latin or German. Verbs on the other hand are quite complex so all children learn about conjugations at school.


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## Sobakus

In Russian the usual expression in full is склонять по падежам _sklonʲátʲ po padežám_ "to decline by cases", but even when not specified as "by cases" you'll still get the same reply - if you specify a word in the singular, you'll get its cases in the singular only, and if you want to hear the plural as well, you'll ask "and now in the plural". Nobody at all would think about changing the gender of adjectives and pronouns since this represents a different paradigm; the singular and the plural are also felt to be different paradigms (Russian has no separate plural endings for different declension classes, though the surface forms can still be different due to different stems).


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## Ellis91

Sobakus said:


> In Russian the usual expression in full is склонять по падежам _sklonʲátʲ po padežám_ "to decline by cases", but even when not specified as "by cases" you'll still get the same reply - if you specify a word in the singular, you'll get its cases in the singular only, and if you want to hear the plural as well, you'll ask "and now in the plural". Nobody at all would think about changing the gender of adjectives and pronouns *since this represents a different paradigm; the singular and the plural are also felt to be different paradigms (Russian has no separate plural endings for different declension classes, though the surface forms can still be different due to different stems).*


Interesting. I know I can look this up, but would you mind explaining this (by DM if you think it's irrelevant here), if possible.


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## Sobakus

Ellis91 said:


> Interesting. I know I can look this up, but would you mind explaining this (by DM if you think it's irrelevant here), if possible.



Well, basically the plural endings are the same for all declension classes: singular a- (1st), o- (2nd), i-stems (3d decl.; consonant- and u-stems no longer exist) all have the same set of endings in the plural, so you can't generally tell the singular declension type from the plural. There are some apparent exceptions, e.g. -ьми́ is 3-decl. only while -а́ми is common, but the difference is synchronically determined by stress so we're talking about accentuation classes, not declension. Accordingly, masculine, feminine and neuter adjectives all have the same plural (see image). Only neuter plural nouns typically retain their own nominative ending in -a (облако, облака _óblako, oblaká_ "cloud(s)"), but even that also exists for many masculines and this pattern is currently very productive; and conversely some neuters have the historically masculine nom.pl. ending (яблоко, яблоки _jábloko, jábloki_ "apple(s)".)​This makes obvious the fact that the declension paradigm (at least in Russian) is vertical only, not horizontal, so a typical adjective declension table actually has 4 paradigms (m., f., n., pl.). The singular and the plural are felt to be two separate paradigms similarly to how 1st and 2nd declension forms (either nouns or adjectives) comprise separate paradigms. Again, one plural paradigm can stand in relation to several singular ones, as well as vice versa. This also appears to be true e.g. for Latin, where some nouns have different declension "classes" in the singular and the plural, e.g. _vās, vāsis <> vāsa, vāsōrum_ "vessel(s)" which is 3d decl. in the sg. and 1/2 decl. in the plural. And then you have the many Romance varieties that have those alternating plurals (_labbro, labbra_) in addition to the "collective plural" in _-ora (fruttora)_. In "regular" cases we have regular correspondences between sg. and pl. paradigms, not a single regular combined paradigm.

In short, in many languages it makes very much sense to treat declension as relating only to case; and it might make sense to extend this definition of declension to all languages.


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## Ellis91

Sobakus said:


> View attachment 68190Well, basically the plural endings are the same for all declension classes: singular a- (1st), o- (2nd), i-stems (3d decl.; consonant- and u-stems no longer exist) all have the same set of endings in the plural, so you can't generally tell the singular declension type from the plural. There are some apparent exceptions, e.g. -ьми́ is 3-decl. only while -а́ми is common, but the difference is synchronically determined by stress so we're talking about accentuation classes, not declension. Accordingly, masculine, feminine and neuter adjectives all have the same plural (see image). Only neuter plural nouns typically retain their own nominative ending in -a (облако, облака _óblako, oblaká_ "cloud(s)"), but even that also exists for many masculines and this pattern is currently very productive; and conversely some neuters have the historically masculine nom.pl. ending (яблоко, яблоки _jábloko, jábloki_ "apple(s)".)​This makes obvious the fact that the declension paradigm (at least in Russian) is vertical only, not horizontal, so a typical adjective declension table actually has 4 paradigms (m., f., n., pl.). The singular and the plural are felt to be two separate paradigms similarly to how 1st and 2nd declension forms (either nouns or adjectives) comprise separate paradigms. Again, one plural paradigm can stand in relation to several singular ones. This also appears to be true e.g. for Latin, where some nouns have different declension "classes" in the singular and the plural, e.g. _vās, vāsis <> vāsa, vāsōrum_ "vessel(s)" which is 3d decl. in the sg. and 1/2 decl. in the plural. And then you have the many Romance varieties that have those alternating plurals (_labbro, labbra_) in addition to the "collective plural" in _-ora (fruttora)_. In "regular" cases we have regular correspondences between sg. and pl. paradigms, not a single regular combined paradigm.
> 
> In short, in many languages it makes very much sense to treat declension as relating only to case; and it might make sense to extend this definition of declension to all languages.


Thanks. Similar to German in a way, although a much more elaborate system still. How does Russian compare to other Slavic languages in this respect, if you know anything about that?


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## Sobakus

Ellis91 said:


> Thanks. Similar to German in a way, although a much more elaborate system still. How does Russian compare to other Slavic languages in this respect, if you know anything about that?




I don't speak any of them, but the situation there appears to be largely the same as in Russian. The only major differences that I recall is that 1) many have distinct nom. endings for the feminine plural, typically in _-e;_ 2) neuter (_-a_) and masculine (_-i_) plurals also tend to be strictly distinguished; 3) many also have remnants of the u-stems in the form of the interfix _-ov-_, which may appear in the sg. or the pl. and may or may not correspond to the u-stem genitive and/or locative sg. in _-u._ Which is to say, there may exist alternative case forms or alternative paradigms for both numbers (or all 3 where the dual exists). An example of what looks like the former is Czech _pán_ "mister, gentleman"; a clear example of the latter is Slovene _dọ̑m_ "house". Russian took this a step further and made two new sg. cases in _-u_ (the partitive and a second locative).


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## Olaszinhok

Sobakus said:


> And then you have the many Romance varieties that have those alternating plurals (_labbro, labbra_) in addition to the "collective plural" in _-ora (fruttora)_


Exactly. However,  that only occurs in Romanian and Italian (also in some central-southern languages/dialects of Italy) not in Western Romance languages.


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## Hulalessar

I have never heard of "declension" being used other than to refer to a paradigm of cases. Nouns in a declension "decline" and have "cases". Whilst always extremely reluctant to offer etymologies as explanations for current meanings, I think they help here. "Decline" includes the notion of falling and "case" ultimately derives from Latin "casus", basic meaning "a falling". A declension is set out according to how each case is (or was at one time) perceived in some way to _fall away from_ the nominative.


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## Perseas

Inflection (Declension-Conjugation), derivation and compounding are morphological processes:

Declension: pupil>pupils, pupil's : the same noun in different forms
Derivation:moral (noun)>moralize(verb): a verb is derived by a noun
Compounding:sugar (noun)+ free(adjective) > sugarfree (adjective).


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## Sobakus

Perseas said:


> Inflection (Declension-Conjugation), derivation and compounding are morphological processes:
> 
> Declension: pupil>pupils, pupil's : the same noun in different forms


Firstly, this is the premise of the OP's question, not an answer to it. They're asking whether declension means the case paradigm only or if it also includes variation in gender in number; derivation and compounding are outside this discussion.

Secondly, it's well-known that the English plural marker isn't a word-level declensional ending, but a either a clitic (separate word) or a phrase-level affix ("The Queen of England’s hat; my wife and I's children"). "children, mice" are individual word-forms, which however don't build any paradigm with "child, mouse" and thus according to my logic don't fall under the concept of declension. These are simply separate stems.


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## elroy

Sobakus said:


> They're asking whether declension means the case paradigm only or if it also includes variation in gender in number


There is no question that it’s the latter.  How the term is _used_ on a case-by-case basis (no pun intended ) is a different matter.

I think @Perseas’s point was that there is no separate term to refer to noun and adjective inflections that encode features other than case.  Indeed, they are subsumed under the term “declension.”


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## Perseas

elroy said:


> There is no question that it’s the latter.  How the term is _used_ on a case-by-case basis (no pun intended ) is a different matter.
> 
> I think @Perseas’s point was that there is no separate term to refer to noun and adjective inflections that encode features other then case.  Indeed, they are subsumed under the term “declension.”


Exactly!


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## Sobakus

elroy said:


> There is no question that it’s the latter.  How the term is _used_ on a case-by-case basis (no pun intended ) is a different matter.
> 
> I think @Perseas’s point was that there is no separate term to refer to noun and adjective inflections that encode features other then case.  Indeed, they are subsumed under the term “declension.”


I explain in my previous replies that I'm of a different opinion. I think this mixes up the notions of declension and agreement. Singular and plural paradigms are clearly separate in many languages which are held to be prototypically inflectional - they stand in relation to each other but don't form single paradigms. In Nominative languages they're defined around inflecting the Nominative for case; according to this reasoning there are at least as many declensions as there are Nominative endings, different for different genders and numbers. There may be more than one singular or plural declension standing in relation to each other (for Russian adjectives it's 3 singulars vs. 1 plural).


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## elroy

It’s not a matter of opinion, though.  At least in English, the term “declension” _does_ include agreement inflections. Whether you think it _should_ is a different matter.

http://www.lingref.com/cpp/decemb/6/paper2235.pdf


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## Sobakus

elroy said:


> It’s not a matter of opinion, though.  At least in English, the term “declension” _does_ include agreement inflections. Whether you think it _should_ is a different matter.
> 
> http://www.lingref.com/cpp/decemb/6/paper2235.pdf


I have several objections to this:


The paper attempts to resolve the issue of Italian double plurals by postulating that "the feminine (idiosyncratic in form and often meaning) is a plural-only lexeme" and "they are not an inflectional class". This explanation may hold whith a blinkered focus on Italian; however it does nothing to explain the broad phenomenon such as the two parallel and (as far as I understand) fully synonymous plurals of Slovene _dọ̑m_, or the Russian competing double plurals (_diréktory/direktorá_) where no semantic difference is readily apparent; or the Latin _vāsis, vāsōrum _where one is straight up the only standard plural of the other.
And it completely fails to explain the fluid transition between "inflectional class" and "gender" of those forms in Romance and even already in Latin, where the same n.pl. nouns in -a are also used as f.sg. What I'm suggesting is that both n.pl. and f.sg. are separate inflectional paradigms, or separate declensions, which makes the transition trivial.

Pay attention to the "inflectional class" in the quotation; earlier the paper says "declensional classes". The two are used synonymously; what we have here is equivocation. You cannot argue for a term's definition from the fact that one scholar equivocates the two terms; or even from many scholars doing the same. While perfect synonyms can't be ruled out in theory (unless your theory is that they don't exist!), I think it's obvious to everyone here starting with the OP that the term "declension" is associated with case. This fact alone indicates that we're dealing with an unfortunate terminological confusion, and anyone who cares about terminological clarity will realise that an extant distinction is being unhelpfully blurred.
I realise that the question of whether definitions can be inherently right or wrong is wrought with difficulty, but again, already from a theoretical point of view if users of the term feel a difference, this means there's a difference; and from a pragmatic point of view it's unquestionable that terminological confusion should be replaced with terminological clarity whenever possible. Even more important is the fact that native speakers feel that difference - linguistics aims to reflect the physical reality inside those speakers' heads. Thus this is not just a matter of me "thinking that it should".

What I think what exists in those heads are ontologically separate declensional paradigms, with gender and number agreement being properties of those separate declensions. I want to stress that it's virtually impossible to speak of completely separate mental entities, certainly not in the same cognitive sub-system - there clearly must exist a continuum of looser and closer connections; but for our purposes the f.sg. and n.pl. paradigms are connected in roughly the same way as f.sg and f.pl. - I've been speaking of them "standing in relation".


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## elroy

I don't see how your first two points relate to whether "declension" includes things other than case.

To your other points:

I don't see an issue with the use of "inflectional class" and "declensional class" in that paper: "inflectional class" is a broader term so it's less specific than "declensional class," but both equally apply here.  In any event, here's another example: http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/BLS/article/viewFile/1420/1204

This _is_ a matter of you "thinking that it should."  You yourself even say "terminological confusion _should_ be replaced with..."  I'm not saying that the distinction between case and other features is not an important one to make, whether conceptually or terminologically, and I'm not saying that it would not be clearer if "declension" referred only to case and we had another term that referred to agreement.  What I _am_ saying is that in current usage, "declension" _does_ encompass both of those things, so, speaking of terminological clarity, if you use "declension" to refer only to case and it's important in your context that readers/listeners _not_ include agreement, then you are risking confusion or misunderstanding.  While many people may assume that you're only talking about case (since that is how the term is predominantly used), you can't guarantee that everyone will understand you.  You would need to perhaps explain at the outset that you are _operationalizing_ the term to mean "case only."


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## Sobakus

elroy said:


> I don't see how your first two points relate to whether "declension" includes things other than case.


The Italian paper attempts to resolve the problem of one "declensional/inflectional class" having two different plurals by exorcising one of the plurals into its own lexeme. Even if one _were_ to agree that the exorcism was successful, I'm giving examples where exorcism doesn't work because neither plural can be exorcised into its own lexeme. I think this shows that the exorcism is based on an uncoscious superstition about the nature of declension. I'm suggesting an understanding of declension that makes one singular having several plurals make sense; ditto for plurals turning into singulars. Plurals and singulars don't form declensional paradigms like different cases of the same gender-number do, they form a different type of relation. I'm saying that this understanding of declension is already in the heads of both speakers and linguists - I'm just bringing it out. Many a philosophical problem has been solved simply by clarifying definitions; after that everyone agrees that the definitions which created the problem weren't definitions at all, just thoughts gone awry.


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## berndf

It is quite clear that the _definition_ of declension is any inflection of a declinable word class. With German declinable word class adjectives, e.g., declension refers to a 5 dimensional matrix that inflects adjectives by case (4), number (2), gender (3), degree (3) and definiteness (3). This in theory produces 216 forms. Of course, this matrix is full of homeomorphic forms (there are only a handful of distinguishable form) but still all 216 are logically distinguished. You could argue that number and gender together have only 4 forms instead of 3x3=9 forms but it would still be a 4 dimensional matrix with 144 values.


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## elroy

@Sobakus, all you seem to be doing is adding (or repeating) arguments that the term _should_ be defined/used differently.


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## Sobakus

@elroy No, I'm trying to demonstrate that it cannot be coherently used to refer to number inflection in inflectional languages including Russian, Slovene, Latin and Italian. The term can only be coherently used to describe the vertical paradigm of case inflection. If you can explain to me what's the declension of _бухгалтер_ or _dọ̑m_, _vās_ and _bracchio_, please do. Do you believe these entries contain different lexemes? Are these special double declension classes? Do you believe there exist horizontal paradigms at all (nom.sg. > nom.pl.), or are you saying these are declensions but aren't paradigms?


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## elroy

The term “declension” has nothing to do with paradigms, classes, or lexemes.  It simply refers to a type of inflectional morphology whereby nouns and adjectives change their forms to encode certain grammatical features, without changing their core meaning or word class.

In a language in which nouns only inflect for number, that is still a type of declension.  Any time a noun is inflected in any way to encode a grammatical feature, that’s declension.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> The term “declension” has nothing to do with paradigms, classes, or lexemes.
> ...
> Any time a noun is inflected in any way to encode a grammatical feature, that’s declension.


 (If you use "noun" in a generic sense including adjectives, articles and pronouns.)


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## elroy

We agree.  I was only saying that we can use the term "declension" to refer to this *if* it happens with a noun -- not *only* *if* it happens with a noun. (There must be some way to express this in logical terms, right?  A similar example: _If it snows, the school will cancel classes._  This doesn't mean that there are no other situations in which the school will cancel classes.) 

Everything I've said about declension applies equally to nouns and to other word classes the term refers to.

(Incidentally, I think the term "noun" can be used to refer to both nouns and pronouns, but I don't think I've ever seen it used in a way that encompasses adjectives and/or articles.)


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## berndf

elroy said:


> (Incidentally, I think the term "noun" can be used to refer to both nouns and pronouns, but I don't think I've ever seen it used in a way that encompasses adjectives and/or articles.)


In Latin grammar yes. _Nomen_ is a generic term for _declinable word_ and _nomina_ are subdivided in _nomina substantiva _and _nomina adjectiva_. German traditional grammar still uses this terminology. That is why it makes me cringe when I read _Nomen_ where the correct term would be _Substantiv_ in grammar books for non-natives or for school children (presumably to align with usage in English).


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## Sobakus

elroy said:


> The term “declension” has nothing to do with paradigms, classes, or lexemes.  It simply refers to a type of inflectional morphology whereby nouns and adjectives change their forms to encode certain grammatical features, without changing their core meaning or word class.
> 
> In a language in which nouns only inflect for number, that is still a type of declension.  Any time a noun is inflected in any way to encode a grammatical feature, that’s declension.


If declension has nothing to do with paradigms, how do you explain what berndf writes (emphasis mine)?


berndf said:


> It is quite clear that the _definition_ of declension is any inflection of a declinable word class. With German declinable word class adjectives, e.g., *declension refers to a 5 dimensional matrix* that inflects adjectives by case (4), number (2), gender (3), degree (3) and definiteness (3).


And what are the 5 Latin declensions if declension has nothing to do with paradigms and classes?

And why does the Italian paper that you linked dedicate itself to explaining away _bracchio, bacchia_ as not a "declensional class" but two separate lexemes (emphasis mine)?


> Nouns like _braccio_ form a class because speakers know they have a special plural (often beside a regular one), but their plurals are the product of *lexeme formation*, not inflection


I mean, if you believe declension has nothing to do with classes or lexemes, how does anything the paper says make sense to you?


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## Perseas

Sobakus said:


> If declension has nothing to do with paradigms, how do you explain what berndf writes (emphasis mine)?
> 
> And what are the 5 Latin declensions if declension has nothing to do with paradigms and classes?


@berndf has also written "that inflects adjectives by case (4), number (2), gender (3), degree (3) and definiteness (3)".

The core issue in this discussion is the function of declension in linguistics: it's a process of word formation. In that sense all forms a word takes to express different grammatical categories (case, number, gender, etc.) are examined.


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## Olaszinhok

Sobakus said:


> _bracchio, bacchia_ a


That's _braccio - braccia_. 
By the way, the noun _braccio_ (like other words in Italian) can have a double plural:
_bracc*io* -* i* bracc*i*_  arms (of a crane)
_bracc*io* - *le*  bracci*a*_ arms (body part).
This is a clear example of number and gender inflection in Italian, to my mind.


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## elroy

What I meant is that the *definition* of the term "declension" has nothing to do with paradigms, classes, or lexemes.  As I said,


elroy said:


> It simply refers to a type of inflectional morphology whereby nouns and adjectives change their forms to encode certain grammatical features, without changing their core meaning or word class.





elroy said:


> Any time a noun is inflected in any way to encode a grammatical feature, that’s declension.


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## Sobakus

elroy said:


> What I meant is that the *definition* of the term "declension" has nothing to do with paradigms, classes, or lexemes.  As I said,


Are you really unfamiliar with the use of "declension" to mean "paradigm or matrix of nominal inflection"? The 5 Latin declensions are different paradigms or declension classes.

The same thing you and others call declension the paper you linked calls lexeme formation. Do you really not understand what this implies even after all of my efforts and examples?


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> And what are the 5 Latin declensions if declension has nothing to do with paradigms and classes?


Mere convenience for memorising and noting the inflected forms. From a purely logical perspective, Latin grammar could be written without them by simply tabulating each declined form (6 cases x 3 genders x 2 numbers) separately for each word in a dictionary.


Sobakus said:


> Are you really unfamiliar with the use of "declension" to mean "paradigm or matrix of nominal inflection"?


The use of the term _declension_ here is purely elliptical for_ declension class_. The term declension in itself describes the mere fact of encoding certain grammatical categories through word inflection.


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## Hulalessar

I am with Sobakus.

"Declension" essentially means "descent" even if the word is rarely used in that sense today. "Decline" is used in may senses, most of which involve some idea of going down. The idea that the case inflections of nouns etc in some sense fall away or decline from the nominative, if not present today, clearly was when nouns etc were first arranged in declensions.

The first dictionary definition of "decline (Grammar)" I found online is: "To inflect (a noun, a pronoun, or an adjective) for number and case." The "and" is conjunctive, not disjunctive; it does not say: "number or case". In fact "number" could be left out because if you are going to show all the case endings you have to show the plural (and dual if there is one). The fact that the declensions of adjectives and pronouns may show distinct forms for different genders is merely incidental; if you are showing all the case endings you have to show them for all the genders.

Nouns do not decline in French, Spanish or Italian; they only inflect for number. Adjectives do not decline either; they only inflect to show agreement with nouns in number and gender. Pronouns do decline.

A declension is little more that a convenient way of showing the cases of words which decline. It is not a collective term for all the forms that nouns etc may take. "Declension without case" is a contradiction in terms.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> The first dictionary definition of "decline (Grammar)" I found online is: "To inflect (a noun, a pronoun, or an adjective) for number and case."


Depending on the language and the type of declinable word class, more categories can be present.



Hulalessar said:


> In fact "number" could be left


With equal justification "case" could be left out. The definition is symmetric.


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## Hulalessar

No. The key word is "case"; "number" is superfluous. "Case", "declension" and "decline" are interconnected as they all involve some idea of falling.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> No. The key word is "case"; "number" is superfluous.


That is simply wrong.


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## Hulalessar

If we go back to "case _and _number" you have to show both. If your "declension" does not show case because the language does not have cases it cannot be a declension.


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## berndf

Same could be said if a language does not inflect for number. At any rate, the precise categories a language declines for depends on the specific language. As said before, the German adjectival declension declines for five categories.


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## berndf

berndf said:


> Same could be said if a language does not inflect for number. At any rate, the precise categories a language declines for depends on the specific language. As said before, the German adjectival declension declines for five categories.


Or take Swedish: Adjectives have 4 of the 5 declension categories you find in German. The one missing is .... case!




god - Wiktionary


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> Mere convenience for memorising and noting the inflected forms. From a purely logical perspective, Latin grammar could be written without them by simply tabulating each declined form (6 cases x 3 genders x 2 numbers) separately for each word in a dictionary.
> 
> The use of the term declension here is purely elliptical for declension class. The term declension in itself describes the mere fact of encoding certain grammatical categories through word inflection.


Declension classes are not a mere convenience - they reflect the psycholinguistic fact that noun declension is regular and paradigmatic. This is the major discovery of grammar's pioneers - if one starts writing the kind of dictionary you propose, they will stumble on a regular pattern which is paradigmatic. These pioneers called these patterns 'declensions', and the phenomenon at large analogy. For example, Servius writes concerning the noun _penus _which exists in a whole of 3 declensions:

_a masculino et a feminino genere quarta est declinatio, a neutro tertia, quo modo *pecus pecoris*_ ('from the masculine and the feminine gender its declension is fourth, from the neuter third, like *pecus pecoris*')​
There is no ellipsis - the word _declīnātiō_ literally means "the action of verging off, bending away, deviation from [the Nominative]"; the meaning "declension class" conceives the sum of all the "bendings" as a system - a paradigm. The meaning you and @elroy are arguing for is basically "the ability for nouns to change form paradigmatically" - this sense probably could exist in Latin but I haven't seen evidence that it did (since language typology didn't exist). One would get word salad if one tried to extend 'declension' to include inflection for gender, e.g. 'in the masculine declension Latin adjectives are of the 2nd declension'. What I was trying to point out is that the same holds true for number - coordinate singulars and plurals actually form separate declension paradigms ('declensions') just like coordinate masculines and feminines. Declensions are vertical paradigms whose head is a nominative form.


berndf said:


> Or take Swedish: Adjectives have 4 of the 5 declension categories you find in German. The one missing is .... case!


What you have on the screenshot is evidence that the term "declension" is used incoherently, and not evidence that it encompasses definiteness markers and degrees of adjective comparison(!). Wiktionary has two conflicting practices: one uses the heading "Declension" instead of "Inflection" for nominal forms and "Conjugation" for verbal forms; the other uses "Inflection" indiscriminately. Even on your screenshot "Declesion" is being used as a heading whereas the table itself reads "Inflection"! This isn't a theoretical statement about the definition of declension, but evidence for a definitional mess. I don't imagine anyone here will call adjective degrees declension - and I would like them to look at the Swedish table and ask themselves "why?". The answer is contained in pretty much all of my replies here and reiterated below.

It's clear that the notion of paradigmatic regularity is what distinguishes the notion 'declension' from 'inflection'; the notion of case is what distinguishes the notion 'declension' from 'conjugation'. I only realise this now, but this explains why one is used of verbs and the other of nouns and adjectives, but cannot be used to describe for example adjective degrees or definiteness. When one talks of definite and indefinite declensions in Icelandic, one doesn't mean the difference between the forms *hús* and *húsið*, but the difference between how the nominative forms *hús* and *húsið* are declined for case, i.e. between their corresponding vertical paradigms. It's this usage that is sometimes sloppily transferred to Swedish which has corresponding nominatives, but these nominatives have no further vertical paradigms of case declension. Each slot in the Swedish table would correspond to a separate declension in Icelandic.

The Englsh usage is not separate from the Latin usage - what I think is happening is that the word 'declension' is inherently part of an outdated grammatical framework, and attempts to extend its use in English have lead to confusion and a cognitive dissonance wherein people attempt to deny its connection to paradigms and case (see #35), which gets them in all sorts of bother going as far as having to exorcise forms that don't fit paradigmatically as lexeme formation (see #24). My argument is that if one looks closely at it, one will find that no line can be drawn.

I welcome anyone who disagrees with my reasoning to use berndf's and elroy's definition to determine whether the following correspondences are declension or lexeme formation. After that please attempt to give an answer from my point of view as you understand it:

_magnus, magna, magnum_ "great m/f/n"
_Rōmānus, Rōmāna_ "a Roman citizen m/f"
_lupus, lupa_ "a he-wolf, a she-wolf"
_victor, victrīx_ "a winner m/f (also used in apposition, e.g. _causa victrīx_ "a winning cause")"
_locus, loca, locī_ "a place, places (geographical), places (on the body, in a text, points in an arguement)"
_braccio, braccia, bracci_ "an arm, arms of a body, arms of a crane"
_бухга́лтер, бухга́лтеры, бухгалтера́_ "a clerk, clerks = clerks"
Can you offer any theoretical evidence for classing any two differently? Please don't offer usage on wiktionary or in student textbooks as such evidence - my point is to demonstrate that the existing usage is theoretically inconsistent.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> the notion of case is what distinguishes the notion 'declension' from 'conjugation'


No. The notion that _conjugation _applies to verbs is what distinguishes _declension _from _conjugation_. In Latin grammar, _declension_ and _inflection _were originally synonyms and Latin grammarians later separated verb conjugation as a separate form of inflection and all what is left is _declension_.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> No. The notion that _conjugation _applies to verbs is what distinguishes _declension _from _conjugation_. In Latin grammar, _declension_ and _inflection _were originally synonyms and Latin grammarians later separated verb conjugation as a separate form of inflection and all what is left is _declension_.


Firstly, I would like to see evidence for this: 1) what word was used by Latin grammarians for "inflection" - _īnflectiō? _2) where is <that word> _tertia_ used synonymously with _dēclīnātiō tertia?_

Secondly, are you saying you've seen 'declension' used of suffixed definiteness markers and adjective comparison? Because the fact that it isn't used in this way is what the part you quoted explains. If 'declension' is used for different forms of adjectives, it should include adjective degrees. If 'declension' is tied to case, this explains why it isn't used this way.

Thirdly, if conjugation was separated from inflection, this means that inflection was used of verb conjugation. Initially you said that inflection was used of noun declension only.

I think you're mistakingly trying to find post-hoc historical justification for modern attempts at defining the terms in English.


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## berndf

In the older grammarians, every change of form which a word undergoes; as _declension_, strictly so called, _conjugation, comparison, derivation_, etc., _Varr. L. L. 8, § 2 sq._; _10, § 11_ sq.; *Cic. de Or. 3, 54*; cf. “also of declension in its stricter sense,”  *Quint. 1, 4, 29*; *1, 5, 63*; “of conjugation,”  *id. 1, 4, 13*; “of derivation,”  *id. 8, 3, 32*; *2, 15, 4*.—

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short,  A Latin Dictionary, dēclīnātĭo


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## Sobakus

Firstly, I'm aware of the use of _dēclīnātiō_ to refer to all sorts of derivation indiscriminately, the closest En. equivalent being 'derivation'. This is not what you say here:


berndf said:


> In Latin grammar, _declension_ and _inflection _were originally synonyms and Latin grammarians later separated verb conjugation as a separate form of inflection and all what is left is _declension_.


I know of no separate term for 'inflection' in Latin grammarians. Inflection is "a change in the form of a word to express different grammatical categories". In contrast, the indiscriminate use you quoted includes 'morphological derivation' and 'lexeme formation'. This only highlights the point I've been trying to make throughout this thread - 2000 years later it's still impossible to tell when and why 'declension' starts being 'lexeme formation'. This is because the term 'declension' is inherently incoherent if used to include plural formation, because plural formation is a qualitatively distinct process from case declension, and the newly-formed plural Nominative has its own declension paradigm.

This is evident already when I say 'plural formation' - 'formation' as in "of a new lexeme", though I don't believe it's qualitatively identical to lexeme formation. In contrast any linguist should recognise 'case formation' as an oxymoron - case forms are understood to "exist there from the start" as part of the declension paradigm. _Declension is the vertical drop-down paradigm that ships automatically with any nominative_ (although some words may have deficient paradigms).


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## berndf

I can only agree with @elroy. You keep explaining to us what if you were to lay out grammatical terminology, declension *should *mean. But that wasn't even the point of contention.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> I can only agree with @elroy. You keep explaining to us what if you were to lay out grammatical terminology, declension *should *mean. But that wasn't even the point of contention.


Nobody in this thread has managed to produce a coherent definition of what they think it _does_ mean crosslinguistically. elroy and you have given two uncompatible definitions both of which are incoherent in practice:

elroy has tried to deny any relation "with paradigms, classes, or lexemes", which as I've demonstrated cannot be correct;
you accept that it has to do with paradigms or as you say "matrices", but you insist that the matrix is not vertical-only but "inflects adjectives by case, number, gender, degree and definiteness".
Are you claiming that your definition is crosslinguistically coherent, or that it isn't and only works for German? Do you believe that adjective degree in German is nominal declension, i.e. inflectional morphology and not derivational? On what basis do you believe that, and does that hold for other languages like Swedish, Icelandic, Latin or Russian?

I expect that you won't be able to come up with any criteria to reliably distinguish inflection from derivation = lexeme formation; if so, you will have confirmed my suggestion that the entire problem is created by the incoherency of the notion of 'declension'. You believe there is a difference between inflection and derivation (certainly elroy does), but the term 'declension', if used to include the formation of gender, plural, adjective degree etc. forms - all the horizontal forms - is incompatible with this belief.

This is a cognitive dissonance which in my opinion is held by everyone in linguistics, but is correctly resolved only by me. elroy attempted to resolve it by denying the paradigmatic link together with all other links; you're attempting to deny its inherent (and properly exclusive) link to case. The Italian paper elroy linked attempted to do it through exorcism using sheer force of will _fiat._ Meanwhile its inherent connection to case is evident to everyone starting with the OP, and needs to be explained - which is what I believe I've done successfully.


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## Hulalessar

I have on my bookshelf _The Revised Latin Primer_ dating to 1956 and edited by the then Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University, who can reasonably be assumed to have been familiar with grammatical terms. The definition of "declension" given in the book is "a grouping of the forms of nouns, adjectives and pronouns according to numbers and cases". That is precisely what I have always taken a declension to be and until I read this thread I had never come across a different definition.

Whilst surfing the net for observations on the word "declension" I came across a site which insisted to the effect that in "The teacher gave the boy a book" "teacher" was in the nominative case, "boy" in the dative case and "book" in the accusative case. That is to confuse form with function. "Teacher" is the subject, but is not in the nominative case just because in Latin the subject of a sentence must be in the nominative case. We know the function of the three nouns by virtue of their position in the sentence. "The boy gave the master a book" uses the same words but means something different.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> you accept that it has to do with paradigms


Declension *classes* have something to do with paradigms. The concept of declension as such not. It just means that certain grammatical categories of nouns (in the wider sense that includes adjectives and pronouns) are encoded by inflections. In principle, each word could have a declension matrix that is unique to this one word without any systematic pattern.



Sobakus said:


> Are you claiming that your definition is crosslinguistically coherent


Different languages encode different information in its declension matrices. Among European languages, German adjectives probably encodes the largest number of dimensions in their declension matrix. Other Germanic languages have eliminated one or more of these categories. In English only degree (good, better, best) has survived for adjectives and number for nouns (cat, cats), which makes the very concept superfluous. If you only ever encounter one dimensional matrices the concept of a matrix as such is not needed.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> Declension *classes* have something to do with paradigms. The concept of declension as such not. It just means that certain grammatical categories of nouns (in the wider sense that includes adjectives and pronouns) are encoded by inflections.


What you're doing here is asserting that only one of the senses of the word 'declension' exists and pretending that the others don't. This is unproductive - I've pointed out several times that the other senses do exist. The phrases '4th declension' or 'the declension of _húsið_' don't mean "the 4th ability of nouns to be encoded by inflections" or that "certain grammatical categories of húsið are encoded by inflections". They refer to corresponding paradigms, the full set of forms.


> In principle, each word could have a declension matrix that is unique to this one word without any systematic pattern.


A paradigm is not about identical endings. It's about a system of slots into which different forms of the word fit. All the words in a language may have unique declension and declension would still be paradigmatic. Declension cannot be non-paradigmatic because noun cases cannot be non-paradigmatic. Because _braccio, braccia, bracci_ doesn't seem to fit into an existing paradigm, the Italian paper asserts that one of the plurals isn't declension but morphological derviation.


berndf said:


> Different languages encode different information in its declension matrices. Among European languages, German adjectives probably encodes the largest number of dimensions in their declension matrix. Other Germanic languages have eliminated one or more of these categories. In English only degree (good, better, best) has survived for adjectives and number for nouns (cat, cats), which makes the very concept superfluous. If you only ever encounter one dimensional matrices the concept of a matrix as such is not needed.


You're continuing to ignore my calls to demonstrate what you consider inflection and what morphological derivation, which is the central issue. Which is which in my list in #45? Is a matrix of morphologically derived forms declension?


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## Hulalessar

Sobakus is right. "Declension" has two different but related meanings. The declension of any particular noun is a table of all its cases. A declension is also a class of nouns which decline in a similar, but not necessarily completely identical, way - hence the five declensions of Latin nouns.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> A declension is also a class of nouns which decline in a similar, but not necessarily completely identical, way - hence the five declensions of Latin nouns.


That is shorthand for declension *class*. By context these two meanings can easily be distinguished. But in the context of the OP this meaning is not relevant and we should stop dragging the discussion in a directions that is purely created by an ambiguity created by a convenient shortening.


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## Hulalessar

berndf said:


> That is shorthand for declension *class*. By context these two meanings can easily be distinguished. But in the context of the OP this meaning is not relevant and we should stop dragging the discussion in a directions that is purely created by an ambiguity created by a convenient shortening.


Fine.

My position is very simple: declension without case is a contradiction in terms because a declension is a table of cases.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> Fine.
> 
> My position is very simple: declension without case is a contradiction in terms because a declension is a table of cases.


Then conjugations wouldn't exist either because they don't have "cases" yet are defined as a matrix of cases. You are playing with two distinct meanings of the word "case": 1) a particular grammatical category and 2) a cell of a matrix.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> A paradigm is not about identical endings. It's about a system of slots into which different forms of the word fit. All the words in a language may have unique declension and declension would still be paradigmatic. Declension cannot be non-paradigmatic because noun cases cannot be non-paradigmatic. Because _braccio, braccia, bracci_ doesn't seem to fit into an existing paradigm, the Italian paper asserts that one of the plurals isn't declension but morphological derviation.


OK, we are getting into too much length in a discussion that is related but ultimately non-essential for the question of the thread, namely if inflection can exist without morphological paradigms. Even if I concede that the concept of inflection needs some form of morphological paradigms to be differentiated from derivations, I can't see how this ties the concept of declension to the concept of "case", which is the topic of this thread. Even the paper you are citing as a crown witness does not doubt for a split second that Italian has something that can properly be identified as a declension system although the categories of this declension system do not include "case".


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## Sobakus

My point isn't that inflection can't exist without paradigms (this seems self-evident). My point is that the concept of declension is inherently centered on the notion of case, and that the paradigm of case inflection is qualitatively distinct from plural, gender, adjective degree etc. formation. The latter are more similar to morphological derivation and not to case inflection. Which is why the Italian paper is able to exorcise plural formation in Italian as an instance of derivational morphology.

The concept of declension is tied to the concept of case is evident to everyone here starting with the OP and has been demonstrated over and over again by me. My main point is that describing declension as including plural, gender, adjective degree etc. formation as the Italian paper does and as you and traditional Latin grammars and many linguists do is theoretically incoherent and leads to cognitive dissonance which prompts unsuccessful coping mechanisms such as denial of usage and grammatical exorcism. All of these attempts are contradictory: nobody calls adjective degree formation in Latin or Russian 'declension', yet you're doing that with German without being able to justify why.

I think I've demonstrated that the notion of declension, and the distinction between inflection and morphological derivation start making sense if and only if one limits the definition of declension to the vertical paradigm of case inflection whose head is the dictionary form (in Latin the Nominative).


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> That is shorthand for declension *class*.


I've already explained that this is incorrect. Latin has no expression for "declension class", it only has the word _dēclīnātiō_ which has the meaning "pattern of nominal inflection, +- declension class" as well as "any derivation, any derived form". The English expression "declension class" is clearly formed to the original Latin meaning and means "a theoretical grouping of nouns based on the way they decline, a class of nouns based on their declension".

Likewise the phrase 'the declension of _magnus_' doesn't mean "the declension *class* of the word _magnus_, the grouping it belongs to, i.e. 2nd". It means "the sum of its inflected forms that make up *the vertical paradigm of this word's case inflection*". In a theoretical language where all nouns decline differently and *no declension classes* can be distinguished, the phrase 'declenion of X' will still make complete sense as meaning "the complete set of X's declined forms".

I'm claiming that in order for this definition to make sense, it needs to be limited to the vertical, dependant, hierarchical paradigm of case inflection, and its _horizontal, parallel, coordinate, non-hierarchical_ relations such as gender, definiteness, adjective degree and plural forms must be excluded just like "clear" (to you but not to me) instances of morphological derivation are excluded. This makes "1st declension singular" and "1st declension plural" two distinct declensions that are independent but coordinate. Obviously this is circular, but stops being so if you replace 'declension' with 'type' or 'class', as in "_rosa _is a class I singular noun whose declension is _rosa, rosae, rosae, rosam, rosā, (rosa)_".

My suggestion is already being observed in practice as people don't use 'the declension of _magnus_' to refer to the pattern _'magnus, magna, magnum'_ nor to _'magnus, magnī'._ Yet people will claim that it refers to this pattern in theory, which is a cognitive dissonance.

The essence of this is that declension is dependant/vertically hierarchical, and gender/plural/adjective degree formation is not.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> The concept of declension is tied to the concept of case is evident to everyone here starting with the OP and has been demonstrated over and over again by me. My main point is that describing declension as including plural, gender, adjective degree etc. formation as the Italian paper does and as you and traditional Latin grammars and many linguists do is theoretically incoherent and leads to cognitive dissonance which prompts unsuccessful coping mechanisms such as denial of usage and grammatical exorcism.


So, we are back where we started with your discussion with @elroy. You explain why you think the concept of declension *should* be tied to case. But this is not the point of contention.

You say the the traditional definition leads to inconsistencies, one can of course say that natural language is full of inconsistent yet useful definitions. But in scientific terminology we should strive for consistent concepts. I would argue that these inconsistencies you speak of, should they exist (what I am not yet convinced of), are due to the fact that you are trying to distinguish between inflection and derivation entirely on morphological criteria. I would argue that this is a mistake and the distinction should be primarily be based on lexical and semantic criteria. E.g. the English _-ing_ form and the German _-ung_ form are both etymologically cognate and morphologically identical except for the different vowel, yet in English it is a verb form, and hence an inflection, and in German it is a derivation. The crucial difference is lexical and semantic and not morphological.


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## Sobakus

I explain that the concept of declension *is* tied to case, which is seen in the way people actually understand and use it, which conflicts with the way they try to officially define it based on the authority of centuries of confused usage. This directly answers the OP's question. You've yet to demonstrate that your definition works and is consistent with your own usage; I think I've demonstrated that it doesn't work and is inconsistent with it.

I haven't attempted to distinguish between derivation and inflection. I've attempted to demonstrate that _you_ cannot distinguish it in a way consistent with your definition of declension.

I continue to ask that you attempt to put your definition to practice and answer which items in the list in #45 are inflection and which are derivation; which belongs to your declension matrix and which doesn't?

On what basis do you claim that plurality, definiteness, gender and adjective degree is not lexical and semantic? How is the Italian paper able to claim that _braccio, braccia_ is lexeme formation? Why is Latin adjective degree formation is understood as derivation and not declension whereas you claim it's declension in German?


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> I explain that the concept of declension *is* tied to case, which is seen in the way people actually understand and use it


In languages with a case system of course. With languages without a case system it is not.


elroy said:


> Sí, Señor.  Declension is to nouns and adjectives what conjugation is to verbs.  Both include all types of inflections.  That said, “declension” _tends_ to be used to refer specifically to case.  But that’s convention, not definition.


This answers the OP question in full. I don't see what else one can say.


Sobakus said:


> You've yet to demonstrate that your definition works and is consistent with your own usage; I think I've demonstrated that it doesn't work and is inconsistent with it.


Not really. Consistency of a concept is not a necessary requirement for a the concept to be factually used. Even your favorite article acknowledges that gender and number are "declensions" in Italian.



Sobakus said:


> On what basis do you claim that plurality, definiteness, gender and adjective degree is not lexical and semantic? How is the Italian paper able to claim that _braccio, braccia_ is lexeme formation? Why is Latin adjective degree formation is understood as derivation and not declension whereas you claim it's declension in German?


Word *forms *are, except for a relatively small number of defective words, defined for all words of a category with a perfectly predictable meaning. Derivations may or may not exist based on a case by case basis and do not always have a predictable meaning. The English gerund describes the abstract act of doing what the base verb means. German _-ung_-derivations can mean that but the precise meaning depends on the case. While _deviating _expresses the abstract act of deviating, a German _Umleitung _is a concrete devia*tion*.


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## S.V.

Hulalessar said:


> Nouns do not decline in French, Spanish or Italian; they only inflect for number.



For ex. after 29.1d in the RAE::NUEVA GRAMÁTICA ("In languages in which nouns are declined," at the bottom; EN), the thought _'right, so like German_' would have come naturally. In our oldest grammar, _& las que dellas se declinan enel plural no tienen singular como burgos dueñas caceres_ (Nebrija).


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