Literary notes about Declension (AI summary)
The term "declension" has been used in literature with a rich diversity of meanings and contexts. Classical grammar texts, such as those by Farley and Kittredge, define declension in a precise, technical way—as the inflection of a substantive or noun ([1], [2], [3])—and even extend the discussion to related processes like the evolution of verbal forms ([4]) and changes in Sanskrit by-forms ([5]). At the same time, authors venture beyond mere grammatical description. For example, Santayana employs “declension” metaphorically to illustrate the dilution of pure vitality by nothingness ([6]), while Thomas Jefferson references the term in debates over historical dating ([7]). In a more humorous vein, Rabelais uses it in a proverb about the fortunes of physicians at the decline of diseases ([8]), and Frazer applies it cosmologically to describe the sun’s annual reduction on Midsummer Day ([9]).
- The inflection of a substantive is called its declension .
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge - Declension of Nouns 87.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge - The inflection of a substantive is called its declension ; that of an adjective or an adverb, its comparison ; that of a verb, its conjugation .
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge - These verbal forms he considers as much earlier than any attempts at declension in nouns.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - In declension the change consisted chiefly in the dropping of a number of synonymous by-forms.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell - The propagation of life involved, then, declension from pure vitality, and to diffuse being meant to dilute it with nothingness.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Why I cannot bring myself to accept the late date here assigned to declension, I have tried to explain before.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Didst thou ever hear the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at the declension of a disease?
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - especially appropriate on Midsummer Day when the sun’s annual declension begins.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
