Declension is a listing of the different case forms of a noun or pronoun. Some languages, such as Latin, Greek, and Russian, have complicated case systems. They have many different forms for each noun or pronoun, varying with the way the words are used in sentences.
In English, the declension of nouns is extremely simple. English nouns have only two case forms: a common case, which is used for both subject and object, and a possessive case. For example, in “The coach instructed the team,” coach is the subject and team is the object, but the common case is used for both. The possessive form is often marked by the inflection -‘s, as in the sentence, “The coach’s instructions contributed to the team’s victory.”
The declension of pronouns is more complicated. Some pronouns have as many as four forms (I, me, my, mine). The subjective and objective cases are distinct (I, me). The possessive case distinguishes between an attributive, adjectival form (my: This is my desk) and a nominal, suppletive form (mine: This desk is mine). No apostrophes are used in possessive forms of pronouns.
See also Case; Inflection; Pronoun.
