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Rh LESSON VII THE FIRST OR Ā-DECLENSION 57. In the preceding lessons we have now gone over all the cases, singular and plural, of nouns whose nominative singular ends in -a. All Latin nouns whose nominative singular ends in -a belong to the First Declension. It is also called the Ā-Declension because of the prominent part which the vowel a plays in the formation of the cases. We have also learned what relations are expressed by each case. These results are summarized in the following table:

58. The Base. That part of a word which remains unchanged in inflection and to which the terminations are added is called the base.

Thus, in the declension above, domin- is the base and -a is the termination of the nominative singular.