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Why some nouns in a particular case get an additional letter, is there a special rule, and does it pertain to all nouns? For example:

Ich wohne in einer Villa mit zehn Zimmern.

das Zimmer, G. -s, Pl. -

or:

So sehr stand auch ich unter dem Banne der allgemeinen Stimmung.

der Bann, G. -(e)s, Pl. -e

Community
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    Zimmern is just Dative Plural of Zimmer. There is nothing special about that. – idmean Aug 08 '18 at 16:17
  • @idmean If the native language doesn't have cases or if the cases are only visible in the article, not the suffix of a noun, this was a something special when learning German in general. – Arsak Aug 08 '18 at 16:37
  • This is called inflection. English has it only for a very few verb forms, but when learning other languages it's an uncomfortable fact of life. – Kilian Foth Aug 09 '18 at 06:17

1 Answers1

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mit zehn Zimmern

"mit" requires Dativ, "zehn" is Plural. Hence Dativ Plural "Zimmern".

unter dem Banne

Again, "unter" requires Dativ, this time it's Singular, so in Standard German it should read "Unter dem Bann". In this case the sentence is written in "poetic German", so the author is taking the liberty of spicing up the language by adding an "e" at the end. It sounds more literature-like that way. In some parts of Germany, this is also acceptable common phrasing, see "die Türe schließen" vs. "die Tür schließen".

ComradeMicha
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    The second example might not be spiced up, but simply somewhat dated or written some decades ago; compare this question. – guidot Aug 08 '18 at 19:56
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    Also note that the -e cannot simply be added to any noun to "spice it up", this is only possible with dative singular, and not with every noun. – RHa Aug 10 '18 at 06:29