Sentence which includes an example of each case

Question

I'm looking for a sentence which includes the usage of each case of Latin. For example, a student could mark each word in the sentence to indicate its case and function for ease of learning.

Extreme bonus points if all of the words in the sentence are the same gender and number, so it could also be helpful in memorizing endings.

Answer 1

Here is another set of examples aimed at the precious bonus points. Now the cases are in the order they are taught here (nom, acc, gen, dat, abl) so as to help memorization; feel free to permute to your local standards.

The first example uses only first declension feminines. You can also switch to plural for those endings.

Puella uvam amicae vicinae e vinea portat.
(Puellae uvas amicarum vicinis e vineis portant.)

A girl brings a grape to the friend's neighbor from the vineyard.

For second declension masculines:

Vir murum magistri amico in vico aedificat.
(Viri muros magistrorum amicis in vicis aedificant.)

A man builds a wall for the teacher's friend in the village.

These four examples should be enough to get anyone started with cases. These nouns and the first conjugation of verbs should appear early enough in a Latin textbook to make these sentences easily accessible.

Because some case endings coincide, there are different ways to read these sentences depending on case choices. It can be a good exercise to list all case combination possibilities and see what they mean.

Answer 2

Here is an example using all seven cases in a typical way:

Marce, vir feminae panem e furno pistoris Romae dat.

Marcus (voc.), the man (nom.) gives a bread (acc.) from the baker's (gen.) oven (abl.) to the woman (dat.) in Rome (loc.).

Reason for each case:

• Marce, vocative: Marcus is being addressed ("Hey Marcus!"), and the vocative is used for this.

• Vir, nominative: The man is the subject of the verb dat, the person who gives.

• Panem, accusative: The bread is the object of the same verb, the thing that is given.

• Pistoris, genitive: The owner of an item (here an oven) is indicated with a genitive.

• Furno, ablative: The preposition e/ex requires the ablative case. In general, when motion away from something (like an oven here) is described, the ablative is used, with or without preposition.

• Feminae, dative: The woman is the recipient of the bread. When you give something to someone, you put that someone in the dative case.

• Romae, locative: When you are in a city, the name of the city is put in the locative case instead of using a preposition like in.

These are very typical uses of each of the seven cases, but not the only ones. Many cases are very flexible, but these examples give an accurate and useful first impression.

This sentence is not eligible for the bonus point, but I think it has the benefit of being quite simple and natural language.

Answer 3

Here is an all-masculine attempt, one word per case, plus a verb:

Vesperi, Attice, imperator populi iussu regi equum pollicebitur.
In the evening, Atticus, the commander, on the people's order, will promise the king a horse.

Explanation:

• Vesperi: Locative of vesper.
• Attice: Vocative of Atticus, the person to whom the narration is addressed.
• imperator: Nominative (note: this is not Atticus, I could have said Miltiades or whoever, but I wanted to avoid yet another proper name)
• populi: Genetivus possessivus of populus, as it is the command of the people.
• iussu: Ablativus causae of iussus, order. (Actually, an order is iussum (n.), it just happens that alicuius iussu is a standing expression, the word only ever appears in the ablative singular)
• regi: Dative of rex, object of polliceri.
• equum: Accusative of equus, object of polliceri.

I am open to more impressive offers to the king, but of the obvious ideas (peace, a treaty, a truce?) none seem to be masculine.

If you are wary of the locative vesperi, you could instead say Chersonesi = “at Gallipoli” or somesuch.