Declension - Basic Declension Theory

Basic Declension Theory

The following hypothetical English grammar demonstrates how declension works in practice. Assume that in English the subject of a sentence has the suffix -tee and the object takes the suffix -woo. Sentences would appear as follows:

• John-tee read an article-woo.
• My friend-tee saw fireworks-woo.
• The article-tee talked about language-woo.
• A business man-tee used his mobile-woo.
• The mobile-tee automatically called the last number-woo.

These examples show how simple declension works in action. Note that, since the subjects and objects are marked with suffixes, the word order can change. As English depends on word order to identify the subject and object, word order cannot change. In the following, the first sentence is the only way to express John reading his book. The second example is grammatically incorrect.

• John read a book.
• A book read John.

However in our theoretical English with declensions, the word order can be changed but the meaning will remain the same as long as the subject and object are marked with the correct suffix.

• John-tee saw the high speed train-woo.
• The high speed train-woo saw John-tee.

Note that the suffixes remain the same even though the word order has changed. In many languages with declension, the word order is not important, however the declension is not optional and nouns must be marked. The following are hypothetical cases and suffixes that would be used in our declined English.

• using something as a tool -ash
• going to/in direction of -ak
• doing something with an object or person -pat
• addressing someone by their name -cake

The following sentences in this theoretical English will demonstrate how foreign English would seem to us if there were declinations.

• John-tee went home-ak with his friend-pat.
• My father-tee wrote a book-woo with his computer-ash.
• Sarah-cake, would you please bring me a whisky-woo with ice-pat.

Note that these sentences could be written in any order and the meaning would stay the same:

• Mark-tee goes to work-ak by car-ash.
• By car-ash Mark-tee goes to work-ak.
• To work-ak Mark-tee goes by car-ash.

This word order is not possible in modern English as there are no cases or declinations as in other languages. This means that in English, word order is essential to constructing coherent sentences.

This theoretical system of declension is relatively simple and is more or less how declension works in languages such as Hungarian. Other languages have a far more complicated set of declensions where the suffixes (or prefixes or enfixes) change depending on the gender of the noun, the quantity of the noun and many other possible factors. There may also be irregular nouns where the declensions are unique for each word. In many languages, articles, demonstratives and adjectives are also declined. The following example demonstrates such declension in our theoretical English.

• The-tee big-tee man-tee saw a-woo big-woo bear-woo.
• Our-tee favourite-tee teacher-tee taugh us-woo how to get to the-ash city-ash centre-ash.