Like most Slavic languages, nouns in Interslavic have three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural) and seven cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative, vocative). The vocative, used for addressing a person or object directly, is actually not a real case, as it behaves significantly different from other cases: it exists only in the singular of masculine and feminine nouns, it never affects adjectives or pronouns, and it has nothing to do with the syntactic structure of the sentence.
Long and complicated paradigms are to be avoided, but we cannot escape distinguishing between a few different word classes. Basically, Interslavic has three declensions:
Within the first declension, we distinguish between three types. This difference affects only the nominative, the accusative and the vocative:
Another distinction is made between hard and soft declension patterns. Soft stems are stems ending in š, ž, č, c, j, lj or nj. As a rule, after a soft stem the -o and -y of the ending become -e, the -ě becomes -i.
The basic endings are displayed in the table below. The forms between brackets are used after soft stems:
I | II | III | masc.anim.sg. | masc.inanim.sg. | neut.sg. | fem.sg. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nom | -Ø | -o (-e) | -a | -Ø | |
Acc | -a | -Ø | -u | ||
Gen | -a | -y (-e) | -i | ||
Dat | -u | -ě (-i) | -i | ||
Ins | -om (-em) | -oju (-eju) | -ju | ||
Loc | -u | -ě (-i) | -i | ||
Voc | -e (-u) | -o (-e) | -o | -i | masc.anim.pl. | masc.inanim.pl. | neut.pl. | fem.pl. |
Nom | -i | -y (-e) | -a | -y (-e) | -i |
Acc | -ov (-ev) | ||||
Gen | -ov (-ev) | -Ø | -Ø | -ij | |
Dat | -am | ||||
Ins | -ami | ||||
Loc | -ah |
In the dictionary, only the gender of words is given. For that reason the examples below are grouped by gender and not by declension.
Virtually all masculine nouns end in a consonant. Basically, there is only one declensional pattern for masculine nouns, but a few things need to be remembered:
Five examples: brat „brother”, dom „house”, muž „man”, kraj „country”.
animate, hard | animate, soft | inanimate, hard | inanimate, soft | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular | |||||
Nom | brat | muž | dom | kraj | |
Acc | brata | muža | dom | kraj | |
Gen | brata | muža | doma | kraja | |
Dat | bratu | mužu | domu | kraju | |
Ins | bratom | mužem | domom | krajem | |
Loc | bratu | mužu | domu | kraju | |
Voc | brate | mužu | dome | kraju | |
plural | |||||
Nom | brati | muži | domy | kraje | |
Acc | bratov | mužev | domy | kraje | |
Gen | bratov | mužev | domov | krajev | |
Dat | bratam | mužam | domam | krajam | |
Ins | bratami | mužami | domami | krajami | |
Loc | bratah | mužah | domah | krajah |
Notes:
Neuter nouns end in -o (hard stems) or -e (soft stems). Except for the nominative/accusative and the genitive plural, their inflection is identical to that of inanimate masculine nouns. Please note:
There is also special group of neuter nouns with the ending -e (in scientific orthography: -ę), for example ime „name” (stem: imen-) and tele „calf” (stem: telęt-). It also includes a few words on -o, for example nebo „heaven” (stem: nebes-). In Old Church Slavonic they belonged to a special declension, which nowadays has vanished in most languages. They can be inflected as ordinary neuter nouns (as if their nominatives were imeno and teleto), they can also be declined according to the more archaic athematic declension.
Because we usually do not distinguish between ę and e, it is useful to remember that a noun ending in -e is always neuter, and as a rule of thumb, when this -e is preceded by:
For the rest, declension is always regular. Three examples: slovo „word”, morje „sea”, ime „name”.
hard | soft | (ę) | |
---|---|---|---|
singular | |||
Nom | slovo | morje | ime |
Acc | slovo | morje | ime |
Gen | slova | morja | imena |
Dat | slovu | morju | imenu |
Ins | slovom | morjem | imenom |
Loc | slovu | morju | imenu |
plural | |||
Nom | slova | morja | imena |
Acc | slova | morja | imena |
Gen | slov | morej | imen |
Dat | slovam | morjam | imenam |
Ins | slovami | morjami | imenami |
Loc | slovah | morjah | imenah |
Most feminine nouns have the ending -a and therefore belong to the second declension. Again, we distinguish between hard and soft stems. In the case of feminine nouns the differences between hard and soft declension are not merely a matter of applying the o/e rule. As a rule, the endings -y and -ě after a hard consonant become -e and -i after a soft consonant (in other words, they are „reversed”).
Just like in the case of neuter nouns, the zero ending in the genitive plural may require the insertion of a epenthetic vowel -e- or -o-.
A few words on -i belong to this group as well (for example bogynji, which is inflected as if the nominative singular were *bogynja).
The -a declension also includes a number of masculine nouns with the ending -a referring to male persons, like sluga „servant” and sudja „judge”. They are inflected like žena or zemja in the singular, but in the plural they follow the pattern of masculine animate nouns: nom.sg. sluga, gen.sg. slugy, nom.pl. slugi, gen.pl. slugov, etc.
Another group of feminine nouns are those ending in a consonant. They form the third declension. Most nouns of this category end in -ost.
Examples: žena „woman”, zemja „earth”, kost „bone”.
2nd declension | 3rd declension | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
hard | soft | -Ø | ||
singular | ||||
Nom | žena | zemja | kost | |
Acc | ženu | zemju | kost | |
Gen | ženy | zemje | kosti | |
Dat | ženě | zemji | kosti | |
Ins | ženoju | zemjeju | kostju | |
Loc | ženě | zemji | kosti | |
Voc | ženo | zemjo | kosti | |
plural | ||||
Nom | ženy | zemje | kosti | |
Acc | ženy | zemje | kosti | |
Gen | žen | zemej | kostij | |
Dat | ženam | zemjam | kostam | |
Ins | ženami | zemjami | kostami | |
Loc | ženah | zemjah | kostah |
Except for the regular declensions listed above, Old Church Slavonic also had another declension type, the so-called athematic declension. Nouns of this type have gone various ways in the modern Slavic languages, mostly merging into one or more of the regular declension types. Interslavic projects choose various approaches to this group, but some of them preserve it.
This declension type includes nouns of all three genders, but most numerous among them are neuter nouns. The following subtypes can be distinguished:
m. (-en-) | n. (-men-) | n. (-et-) | n. (-es-) | f. (-v-) | f. (-r-) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular | ||||||
Nom | kamenj | ime | tele | nebo | crkov | mati |
Acc | kamenj | ime | tele | nebo | crkov | mati |
Gen | kamene | imene | telete | nebese | crkve | matere |
Dat | kameni | imeni | teleti | nebesi | crkvi | materi |
Ins | kamenem | imenem | teletem | nebesem | crkovju | materju |
Loc | kameni | imeni | teleti | nebesi | crkvi | materi |
Voc | kameni | ime | tele | nebo | crkov | mati |
plural | ||||||
Nom | kameni | imena | teleta | nebesa | crkvi | materi |
Acc | kameni | imena | teleta | nebesa | crkvi | materi |
Gen | kamenev | imen | telet | nebes | crkvij | materij |
Dat | kamenam | imenam | teletam | nebesam | crkvam | materam |
Ins | kamenami | imenami | teletami | nebesami | crkvami | materami |
Loc | kamenah | imenah | teletah | nebesah | crkvah | materah |
The entire athematic declension can be avoided by inflecting these words according to the regular declensions, as most other Slavic languages do. In that case:
Interslavic is kept as regular as possible, but a few cases of irregularity cannot be avoided without defying naturalism. The following nouns have an irregular plural (all four inflected like a feminine noun of the kost type):
Regular plurals (člověki, oka etc.) can be used as well, but some of them sound very strange to the Slavic ear, even though they will be understood anyway.
Borrowed international vocabulary ending in -e, -i or -u (f.ex. alibi, hobi, intervju, kafe, kakao, kliše, menju, tabu, taksi) and abbreviations are indeclinable. It is not impossible to add case endings anyway, but in that case it is best to separate them from the noun with an apostrophe: togo alibi’a, te intervju’y, tyh taksi’ov itd.