A Word on Declension

I think it's a safe bet that those reading this blog are english speakers.  This is where it's helpful to point out some differences between these two languages.  In english, much of the meaning comes from word order.  In latin, it comes from the endings on words.  If I were to write, in english, 'the slave fears the dog', and I changed the word order to say 'the dogs fears the slave'.  We change the meaning dramatically with this.  In latin we would write 'seruus timet canem'.  If we took this phrase and changed the order of the words, it would still have the same meaning.  This is because of how the nouns are declined.  Seruus is in the nominative, so we know that it is the subject of the sentence.  Canem is the accusative form of canis, which means dog in latin.  Accusative tells us that it's the subject. 

Our verb is timet, which is timere(to fear).  The -t ending means that he/she/it fears.  Translating word for word, it becomes 'the male slave he fears the dog'.  Word order is not important here, only the endings.  If we change things around, and write 'seruum timet canis', it would become 'the dog fears the slave'.  Again you can shuffle those words around as much you wish and the meaning will not significantly change.  It does change the emphasis, the first word being emphasized above the others.  Many writers in latin preferred to put the verb at the end of the sentence, maintaining a sense of suspense until the end.  For those following along at home, seruus is 2nd declension and masculine, canis is 3rd declension and masculine.