Slovianski ~ Словјански ~ Словянски

Version: June, 2011

3. PHONOLOGY & ORTHOGRAPHY

3.1. Degrees of simplification

Slovianski is neither a national language, nor does it try to emulate one. Instead, it is based on some fifteen national languages, each of them having its own phonology and its own corresponding orthography, tailored to fit. In general, it can be said that the further South you go, the smaller the phoneme (sound) inventory becomes. Slovianski tries to be in the very middle of them as much as possible, and so its phonology is based on sounds that occur in all or most Slavic languages. The question is only: how rich should it be? If the number of phonemes is high, writing Slovianski intuitively becomes harder for those who are used to little phonemes, but if it is low, it becomes harder to read for those whose own language has a richer phonology. To give an example, the ideal pronunciation of the word for "five" (East Slavic pjať, Polish pięć, Czech pět, Slovak päť, South Slavic pet, Common Slavic pętь) would be something like [pʲætʲ]. If we write this as pęť, a Russian will only need to know that he should read ę as his own ja, a Serb as his own e. But for a Serb, there is no way of knowing when his own e and t become ę and ť. On the other hand, in a simplified scheme pet could also be understood as Russian peť "to sing" or Polish pet "cigarette butt". Another problem is of course that the more phonemes there are, the harder it becomes to write Slovianski on a normal keyboard. Therefore, the easier we make it for the speaker/writer, the harder it becomes for the listener/reader, and vice versa. Both options have their pros and cons, and which option is best depends very much on the questions how, where, by whom and for what purpose Slovianski is used.

Slovianski offers a practical solution to this problem: diacritical marks. Instead of making an ultimate choice, those marks may or may not be used as a means to add phonological and etymological detail. Any user can choose for himself how far he wants to go in being faithful to the correct pronunciation, or how far he wants to go in simplifying its representation. Thus, instead of having one closed system of phonology and orthography, Slovianski covers the entire range between a faithful representation of the most correct pronunciation (Naučny Medžuslovjanski = "Scientific Interslavic") and an highly simplified representation in which many different phonemes merge into one (provisionally called Slovianto); the difference between those extremes is merely a matter of adding/removing diacritical marks. This enables us to use one grammar and one dictionary on all levels. Solutions between them are possible as well. Slovianski Plus is close to Naučny Medžuslovjanski, but diacritics that do not really needed to improve understandability are omitted. Traditional Slovianski is the most commonly used form of Slovianski; it is fairly simplified and does not distinguish between, for example, i and y, but still retains a set of five soft consonants. How it works can be seen in the following table:

This grammar is based on traditional Slovianski. Click here for the same grammar in Naučny Slovjanski orthography.

3.2. Phonology

Traditional Slovianski has 6 vowel and 27 consonant phonemes (unlike Naučny Medžuslovjanski, which has no less than 19 vowels and 32 consonants). They are displayed in the following charts; variations in Naučny Medžuslovjanski are shown in gray:

	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i [i] u ų [u] y [ɪ] è/ò [ə] e ě ė [ɛ] o [ɔ] ę [æ] a [a] å [ɒ]
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

The letter r can be syllabic as well. This is the case when it is preceded by a consonant and not followed by a vowel. It should be pronounced with a schwa before it: trg [tərg], mrtvy [mərtvɪ], cukr [ʦukər].

3.3. Orthography

3.3.1. Alphabet

Pronouncing a huge number of phonemes is one thing, writing them is another issue. The more phonemes we distinguish, the harder it become to represent them on an ordinary Slavic or non-Slavic keyboard. One of our main design criteria is that Slovianski can be written on any Slavic keyboard, but there is one problem: they correspond with a language's national orthography, which was tailored to fit the needs of that particular language. About one half of the Slavic languages uses the Latin alphabet, whereas the other half is written in Cyrillic. Furthermore, both alphabets exist in two mutually exclusive versions. Thus, we have: a Latin alphabet with v, š, ž etc., used for Czech, Slovak, Slovene and Croatian; a Latin alphabet with w, sz, ż etc,., used for Polish, Kashubian and Silesian (Sorbian and Belarusian Łacinka use a mix of those two systems); a Cyrillic alphabet with й, ь, ю etc., used for Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian; and a Cyrillic alphabet with ј, љ and њ, used for Serbian and Macedonian. Because Slovianski is a generic Slavic language, it cannot be said that one way is "better" or "more Slavic" than the other. Besides, any Slav should feel comfortable writing Slovianski, so we have to live with the fact that Slovianski can be written in many different ways. One possible way of dealing with this problem is having four or more different "official" alphabets. Not a very practical solution: to be fair to all of them, we would also have to represent texts in all of them, have dictionaries in all of them, etc. This requires a lot of maintenance, complex transliteration systems, and – as we know by experience – it doesn't really work anyway, because users of Slovianski tend to use their own variations anyway. Therefore, we have decided to choose a different approach.

Because końe, koňe, konje, konie and kone all occur naturally in the Slavic languages, all representing the very same thing, there is not much point in debating which version should be "official", as any such choice would automatically imply that other solutions become "inofficial" and therefore "wrong" or at least "non-standard". Therefore, we abandon the idea of Slovianski having an official orthography altogether. Instead, we assume that all possible ways of writing a word or sound derive from a prototype, and that this prototype is the basis for the orthography we consider best for representing Slovianski. Since we are dealing with two entirely different alphabets (Latin and Cyrillic), we can't avoid having one prototype orthography for each of them. Ideally, both should have the following characteristics:
– they must be intuitively understandable to anyone who can read the alphabet in question
– they must be logical and consistent
– they must give a decent impression of the right pronunciation; if possible, one sound (phoneme) = one character
– they should be compatible (simple transliteration, preferably one a 1:1 basis)
– they should not include unnatural elements
– they should not be ugly or otherwise offensive (like for instance йа or łi), but neither should they be limited to the specifics of national languages
- they are displayed correctly on the average computer screen, therefore characters from unusual character sets, combining diacritics and the like should be avoided.

Obviously, neither Latin nor Cyrillic are able to fulfill all these requirements in such way that every Slav could write and understand the final result. Therefore, we use 23 letters from the Latin alphabet (all except q, w and x), while soft and/or palatalised consonants are marked with a haček. For the Cyrillic alphabet we use all characters that the various Cyrillic orthographies have in common, with additional ј from Serbian and Macedonian as the equivalent of Latin j (й is too restrictive regarding its surrounding vowels and consonants), and ь from Russian, Ukrainian etc. as the Cyrillic equivalent of the haček. It should be remembered that both alphabets are prototypes: those who cannot write a character on their own keyboard are offered several alternatives. But let's first take a look at the prototype:

3.3.2. Representation of non-ASCII characters

If your are able to write a characer from the prototype alphabets on your own keyboard, then we suggest you to do that. If your keyboard provides a similar alternative (like ż instead of ž, or ń instead of ň), then by all means use it as a substitute. But what happens if both are absent in your own orthography? Here are a few recommendations:

These are very important letters in Cyrillic. In SMS language the haček is often omitted, but this has a negative impact on understandability. Poles can of course use cz sz ż. The best asciification is cz sz zs. Alternatively, you can also use cx sx zx, which has the advantage of being consistent but the disadvantage of being unnatural. If you happen to be an esperantist with easy access to Esperanto characters, you can use ĉ ŝ, but the problem with that is that Esperanto lacks ẑ. Other solutions are to be avoided. For example, ch sh zh has the disadvantage that West Slavs would understand ch as h [x], while c^ s^ z^ would be considered ugly by most people.

The easiest way of simplifying these is simply removing the haček (which in many fonts look like an apostrophe in f.ex. ľ), which gives d l n r t. This is a perfectly acceptable form of simplification, but it decreases understandability for West and East Slavs. It can be applied easily on ď ť ř, much less so in the case of ľ ň, because these two phonemes are almost universal in Slavic. Therefore, please consider a few guidelines:

• If your keyboard offers the possibility of writing ň, then that's what you should use: koň.
• If your national orthography has another character with the same value (ń, nj), you can use it as an equal alternative. Same goes for ĺ, lj and ŕ. Example: koń, konj.
• If your keyboard doesn't have those either, or if you prefer ASCII anyway:
  • before a consonant it is best to use j, e.g. konja. Alternatively, i can be used as well (konia), but this makes it harder for South Slavs than j makes it for Poles. Kon'a and kona are admissable as well, but the former is generally considered ugly, while the latter decreases understandability for many Slavs. Before e, omitting this j is less harmful than before other consonants.
  • at the end of a word or syllable, it is best to use an apostrophe: kon'. Omitting it in this position is pretty harmless as well: kon.

To illustrate the above, here are a few examples (in order of preferability):

Serbians and Macedonians are probably not able to write the soft sign ь on their own keyboard. The best alternative is to substitute ль нь with љ њ. Simply removing ь is acceptable, but it has the same disadvantage as removing the haček from ľ ň. For the remaining cases (дь рь ть) we suggest the following (taking ть as an example again):

• before а, о and у, it is best to write a ј, e.g. путјa
• before е, it is better to add nothing and simply write те (путе), because sequences like тје look awkward
• the least offensive alternative for путь would be пут. However, solutions like путј or пут' are okay, too
• always avoid using ћ and ђ, because etymologically they correspond with Slovianski č dž and not with ť ď. Besides, these characters are likely not understood by f.ex. Russians.

On the other hand, Russian, Ukrainians, Belarussians and Bulgarians do not have ј. The logical substitute here is й (syllable-initially/finally) or ь (after a consonant). However, that is not the end of the story, because Cyrillic is not very supportive of sequences where these are followed by a vowel. Instead, in most cases digraphs are used:

• йа/ьа can be written as я, and йу/ьу as ю; this is definitely a more natural solution, but it should be remembered that not all Serbs and Macedonians can understand these characters, also because their shape is not particularly suggestive
• йе can be written as є, but this character exists in Ukrainian only and is probably unknown to other Slavs. Instead, е can be used, but in that case it would be logical to write initial (hard) е as э. Bulgarians, who have neither є nor э, can use either йе (ugly to some, but at least clear) or е (abolishing the е/је distinction)
• ье is not a problem, it can always be written as е
• йи can be written as ї, but just like є it exists in Ukrainian only. Because there is no fundamental distinction between йи and syllable-initial и, it is always possible to use и in these cases
• ьи does not occur in Slovianski, because и already consonant the softener in itself
• йо/ьо are never a problem. Russian ё should be avoided, because it is used under different circumstances and may not be clear to those who don't know Russian.

All this is demonstated in the following table:

This character, non-existent in South Slavic and Ukrainian, is not mandatory in Slovianski. Those who do not have these characters on their keyboard, as well as those who are targeting a predominantly South Slavic audience, are advised to use i / и instead.

Most other characters from Naučny Medžuslovjanski can't easily be transliterated into Cyrillic without resorting to antique (ѣ ѧ ѫ) or otherwise uncommon (ѝ ә ԃ) characters and without resorting to diacritics (something Cyrillic tolerates a lot worse than Latin). Do not try to rework them into Cyrillic. Of course, a Cyrillic version of Naučny Medžuslovjanski is possible, but not without sacrificing the idea that simplification can be achieved by removing diacritics. Instead, such an orthography would have to contain lots of archaic characters, which would hardly make the result more understandable for anybody. Therefore, before transliterating characters like á ć ě ė ę è ò ų etc. into Cyrillic, one should first remove the diacritics. The only possible exceptions here are ś ź (сь зь).

As can be seen from the above, there are many possibilities for writing the same word. Each of those can be used. The general guideline is: as long as it is understandable, it is okay. However, a few things in particular are to be avoided:

• Try not to mix several systems in the same text, because that will only create confusion. If you choose to represent š by sx, that's fine, but then don't use č or cz at the same time. Also, it would be a little odd to use asciified versions like sx and non-asciified versions like ř or ŕ in one text. In general, it deserves recommentation to treat all soft consonants in a consistent manner.
• Obviously, mixing Cyrillic with Latin is even more ill-advised.
• To be avoided are characters that "bite" each other, characters that are too unknown outside their own realm and don't evoke the right connotations either, as well as characters that are simply not needed. This goes for example for: ć (used in Polish for ť and in BCMS for tj > č), đ (its voiced equivalent), their Cyrillic counterparts ћ and ђ, Russian ё (used for jo but under completely different circumstances), Polish ł, Cyrillic і (present in Ukrainian but also under different circumstances), щ, џ, Macedonian ѕ, ѓ and ќ, Ukrainian ґ, etc.
• Try also to avoid using a lot of non-letter characters (^ ' etc.) as a means to replace diacritics. Most people find this ugly, and it doesn't really help in making a text more understandable. Apostrophes at the end of a word or between two consonants are fine, but they should rather not be allowed to dominate the general look-and-feel of a text. Before vowels, it is better to avoid them.

The Slovianski Transliterator makes it possible to transliterate between several versions.

3.4. Pronunciation

The pronunciation rules for natlangs are determined by their native speakers. Slovianski's purpose is not to serve as some kind of standard language or Dachsprache for Slavs, but still, it is intended to be equally "native" for all Slavs, and for that reason any Slavic pronunciation of it cannot be considered wrong. As a result, pronunciation in Slovianski is fairly free. That is to say, Slovianski pronounced "the Russian way" is by no means better or worse than Slovianski pronounced the Polish or the Serbian way. Any recommended pronunciation is not more than an approximation. That does not mean, however, that Slovianski cannot have an "ideal" pronunciation for every phoneme. The closest approximation is provided by Naučny Medžuslovjanski. For example, the vowel in TorT sequences affected by liquid metathesis is represented by å as in kråva. Because this vowel becomes o in Polish, Sorbian and East Slavic (krova, korova), and a in Czech, Slovak and South Slavic (krava), the best pronunciation would be somewhere in between: [ɒ]. The same goes for Proto-Slavic ę, which usually becomes [jɛ̃] or [jɔ̃] in Polish, [jɛ] in Czech, [ja] in East Slavic and [ɛ] in South Slavic. If we take the most "average" pronunciation, we end up with something like [jæ]. In traditional Slovianski, many of these phonemes merge, and we also have to take this into account when dealing with pronunciation.

The consonants p, t, k, b, d, f, s, z, m, n and r are pronounced identically in all Slavic languages. They all match their corresponding IPA value. Speakers of languages like English and German should be aware that any type of aspiration (as in the word "posh") must be avoided. Also c [ʦ] and h [x] have a unitary pronunciation.

In the case of other consonants, pronunciation tends to be more variable, depending on the nationality of the speaker:
g [g] ~ [ɦ]
v [v] ~ [ʋ]
š [ʃ] ~ [ʂ]
ž [ʒ] ~ [ʐ]
č [ʧ] ~ [tʂ]
l [l] ~ [ɫ] ("thick" l)

Even larger discrepancies happen in the case of the softened consonants. They can be realised either by having a hard consonant followed by a j-like sound, by softening or by palatalising it. In a more simplified form of Slovianski the soft vowels ť ď ř can be also pronounced hard (ň ľ much less so), especially at the end of syllables.
ň [nj] ~ [nʲ] ~ [ɲ]
ľ [lj] ~ [lʲ] ~ [ʎ]
ť [tj] ~ [tʲ] ~ [c] ~ [t]
ď [dj] ~ [dʲ] ~ [ɟ] ~ [d]
ř [rj] ~ [rʲ] ~ [r̝] (raised alveolar trill) ~ [r]

The same liberal approach goes for devoicing voiced consonants at the end of a word, or voicing unvoiced consonants before voiced consonants. Anybody can use the pronunciation he feels most comfortable with. Thus, Bog [bɔk] and prosba [prɔzbɑ] are both correct. However, it deserves recommendation to follow a pronunciation that is as close as possible to how it is written.

As for the vowels, there tends to be some variation on the scale of open/closed and front/back. Only u is always [u].
a [ɑ] ~ [a]
e [ɛ] ~ [e]
i [i] ~ [ɪ]
y [i] ~ [ɨ]
o [ɔ] ~ [o]

To avoid fuzziness, forms of akanje (pronouncing unstressed vowels as [ɑ] or [ə]) should be avoided.

Of particular interest is the pronunciation of e, because it incorporates several different phonemes present in Naučny Medžuslovjanski. Following majority rule, e and é should be pronounced as a hard [ɛ], ě as [ʲɛ] (softening the preceding consonant), ę as [ʲæ], and è as [ə] or [ʲə]. The truth is, however, that in many languages these sounds merge: in Russian and Polish, they all soften or palatalise their preceding consonant, in Slovene, Serbian and standard Bulgarian they usually don't. In any more simplified form of Slovianski they merge as well (making Slovianski essentially an ekavian language) into something that can both be pronounced [ʲɛ] or [ɛ]. What goes for e goes for i as well: it may cause a softening of the preceding consonant, but this pronunciation is not mandatory.

When a consonant is followed by j, this causes some kind of "double softening" in the form of soft consonant + j. In general, it is recommended to make an audible distinction between f.ex. te [tɛ], [tʲɛ], [cɛ], [tjɛ] and tje [tʲɛ], [tjɛ], [tʲjɛ], [cjɛ]. Note that softening/palatalisation occurs only after t d n r l, possibly also after s z. After other consonants, it is better to produce a clearly audible j: slovjanski [sɫɔvjanski].

One last remark. When it comes to speaking, one has always to remember that communication is not just a matter of language. The non-verbal part is equally important. When you use Slovianski in a conversation, always make sure that the person you are talking to actually understands you. Speak slowly, keep eye-contact, articulate well, and always be a good listener.

3.5. Stress

Accentuation is free. However, if you want to stay on the safe side, it would deserve recommendation to follow as guidelines:

• when a word has two syllables, stress falls on the first syllable;
• when a word has three syllables, stress falls on the first or second syllable;
• when a word has four syllables, stress falls on the second or third syllable;
• stress should not be influenced by inflection; if the adjective „bely” is pronounced bely, the genitive should be pronounced belogo and not belogo.

3.6. The y/i rule and the o/e rule

Inflection is kept as regular as possible. Yet, the following rule should be applied to achieve maximum naturality:

After a soft consonant (j, č, š, ž, ť, ď, ň, ř, ľ), as well as after c:
– in endings beginning with y, this vowel is replaced with i
– in endings beginning with o, this vowel is replaced with e

Thus, while the basic adjectival and pronominal endings are -y, -ogo, -ym, -om etc., some adjectives and pronouns have -i, -ego, -im, -em instead. Likewise, compare žen-y with zemj-i, okn-o with moř-e, grod-ov with kraj-ev, and so on.

The y/i rule should be applied after k, g and h as well: legk-y, drug-y and suh-y become legk-i, drug-i and suh-i. This does not necessarily mean that the preceding velar consonant is softened.

The Slavic languages differ as to the degree in which the o/e rule is applied. For example, in Russian soft consonant + o sequences are a rarity, while Polish has only some lexicalised remnants of the rule (f.ex. królewski, but: królowa). In Slovianski, it is recommended to apply the o/e rule in case endings, although svežo/svežogo, s mužom or dňov cannot be considered incorrect either. Suffixes are better left intact, for reasons of transparency: svežosť, nočovati.

The y/i rule, on the other hand, applies in all possible situations. It is the only additional rule that should be learned when applying the orthography of Naučny Medžuslovjanskí on Slovianski grammar. When applying it, one should follow these two guidelines:
- y can never follow a soft consonant
- any consonant preceding i (except k, g, h) is soft by definition; therefore we write ti, li, ri, si etc. instead of ťi, ľi, ři, śi.

4. GRAMMAR

4.1. Nouns

As in all natural Slavic languages, nouns in Slovianski have three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). All Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, have six or seven cases. These cases are fairly consistent with one another. Therefore, Slovianski has six cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative. Some Slavic languages also have a vocative, which, if desired can also be used in Slovianski. Because the vocative is not a real case, it will be treated separately.

A simplified form of Slovianski, Slovianski-P, has no declension at all, and replaces all grammatical cases by means of prepositions or word order.

Long and complicated paradigms are to be avoided, but we cannot escape distinguishing between a few different word classes.

These are the basic endings in Slovianski. The forms between brackets are used after soft stems (in most cases, this is a matter of applying the o/e and y/i rules):

¹ When a masculine noun is inanimate, the accusative has the same form as the nominative; when it is animate, the genitive is used instead.
² In words with the ending -ija, it deserves recommendation to shorten the ending to -u: s Srbiju instead of s Srbijeju.

Below follow a few examples of each declension:

4.1.1. Masculine declension

One declension will do here. After a soft vowel, the endings -om and -ov are preferably changed to -em/-ev. For animals and male persons the accusative is identical to the genitive, while in the case of inanimate objects the accusative is identical to the nominative. Three examples: dom „house”, pes „dog”, muž „man”.

4.1.2. Neuter declension

Neuter nouns end in -o (-e after a soft consonant), but this difference does hardly affect declension. Declension is always regular; it includes the ancient Slavic -mę/-men- and -tę/-tęt- declensions (regularised into -meno and -tetko). The nominative and instrumental singular are affected by the o/e and y/i rules. Also, when the noun ends in -e, use -u in the locative singular instead of -e. Again, three examples: slovo „word”, imeno „name”, and moře „sea”.

4.1.3. Feminine declension

Here we can't avoid introducing two different declensions: one for words on -a, one for words ending in a soft consonant. Note that the declensions of nouns on -a and nouns on -ja are identical, except that the latter are affected by the o/e and y/i rules. Besides, nouns with a soft stem have -i instead of -e in the dative and locative singular. Examples: žena „woman”, zemja „earth”, jednosť „unit(y)”.

4.1.4. Irregular nouns

Although we have done our very best to avoid any kind of irregularity in Slovianski, in a few cases it cannot be avoided without defying naturalism. The following nouns have an irregular plural (in all four cases declined as a feminine noun of the jednosť type):

• človek (m.) „human being, person”, pl. ľudi (f.) „people”
• dete (n.) „child”, pl. deti (f.) „children”
• oko (n.) „eye”, pl. oči (f.) „eyes”
• uho (n.) „ear”, pl. uši (f.) „ears”

Regular plurals (človeki, oka etc.) can be used as well, but they sound very strange to the Slavic ear, even though they will be understood anyway.

The word dete is irregular in another respect as well: it is inflected as if the nominative singular were *deteto, thus: gen. deteta, dat. detetu, etc.

4.1.5. The vocative

Apart from the six regular cases, some Slavic languages also have a vocative, used for addressing a person or object directly. Although it is often listed as one, the vocative is not a real case, and it behaves significantly different from other cases: it does not have a plural, it never affects neuter nouns, adjectives or pronouns, and it has nothing to do with the syntactic structure of the sentence.

Several Slavic languages have no vocative at all or preserved only some fossilised remnants of it. This goes for Russian, Belarussian, Slovak, Lower Sorbian, Slovene and Polabian. Some other languages do have vocatives, but show an increasing tendency towards replacing it with the nominative (Cashubian, Macedonian, Bulgarian). In Upper Sorbian the vocative is used only for masculine words. The only languages where the vocative is really in full use are Ukrainian, Polish, Czech and Serbo-Croatian.

For this reason, the nominative can always be used instead of the vocative in Slovianski. However, if you prefer to use a real vocative anyway, then the following forms are recommended:

• hard masculine stems take -e: Ivan > Ivane, doktor > doktore, človek > človeče
• soft masculine stems take -u: prijateľ > prijateľu, muž > mužu, koň > koňu
• masculine words on -èc take -če: hlapèc > hlapče
• masculine and feminine words on -a change their ending to -o: sluga > slugo, žena > ženo, zemja > zemjo
• in the case other words (feminine nouns on a consonant, neuter nouns) the vocative is to be avoided.

4.2. Adjectives

Adjectives match with the noun they modify in gender, case and number. Declension is always regular, but heavily affected by the o/e and y/i rules. The basic endings (applying not only to adjectives, but also to possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and the like) are:

¹ Just like in the case of nouns, the accusative has the same form as the nominative when the corresponding noun is masculine and inanimate, and the same form as the genitive when the corresponding noun is masculine and animate.

Here follow an example of a hard and an example of a soft adjective (in the case of masculine words, it is assumed that the subject is inanimate): dobry „good” and sveži „fresh”.

4.2.1. Adverbs

Adverbs can be derived from adjectives by using the ending -o (-e after a soft consonant). In other words, they are similar to the neuter form: dobro „well”, svěže „freshly”.

4.2.2. Comparison

Comparatives and superlatives can be made in two ways: a simple form and a more complex form. The simple form uses the words više- (more), mene- (less), naj- (most) and najmene- (least), preceding the adjective and preferably connected to it with a hyphen. The complex form replaces the ending -y/-i with -ejši for the comparative, which in turn can be turned into a superlative by adding the prefix naj-.

When changed into an adverb, instead of *-ejše we simply use -ej.

There is also another superlative with the prefix pre-, meaning „very” or „too”. An adjective can be turned into the opposite by the prefix ne-.

Here is again the word dobri as an example:

• dobry „good”, dobro „vell”
• vyše-dobry or dobrejši „better” (adjective), više-dobro or dobrej „better” (adverb)
• naj-dobry or naj-dobrejši „best” (adjective), naj-dobro or naj-dobrej „best” (adverb)
• mene-dobry „less good”
• najmene-dobry „least good”
• ne-dobry „not good, bad”
• pre-dobry „too good, extremely good, excellent”

4.3. Pronouns

4.3.1. Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns have the same six cases as the nouns. Because even the Slavic languages that got rid of most declension kept dative and accussative forms of personal pronouns besides the nominative ones, Slovianski-P has got them, too.

Notes:

1. After a preposition, all pronouns of the third person are preceded by n-: jego > do njego; im > pri nim, etc.
2. Slovianski-P uses the short forms in the accusative singular and the long forms in the dative (preceded by n-).
3. If you are curious how these forms relate to the Slavic languages, you can see them compared here.

And a few notes regarding usage:

• Because not all verb endings are equally obvious to all speakers of Slavic languages, pro-drop (i.e. omitting personal pronouns when they are the subject of a sentence) is not recommended. It is better to say „on čita” instead of just „čita”.
• Prepositions can govern any case, depending on their usage in the Slavic languages. Slovianski-P always uses the accusative form.
• The pronoun on refers to any noun of masculine gender and not only to male beings. In the same way, the pronoun ona refers to any noun of feminine gender and not only to female beings.
• As all natural Slavic languages, Slovianski has got T-V distinction, i.e. vy is a universal second person pronoun for both numbers, but in singular, ty may be used to address friends, relatives and children.

4.3.2. Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns

The reflexive pronoun is sebe. It is inflected like ty, tebe, ..., the only difference being that it does not have a nominative.

There is also a shorter form, almost always used in reflexive verbs: se. For example: „Ja myju se” „I'm washing myself”.

The reflexive pronoun can also be used as a reciprocal pronoun: „Oni bijut se” can mean „They are hitting themselves”, but would rather have the meaning: „They are hitting each other”. To be more explicit about the meaning „each other”, you can add the formula jedin drugogo: „Oni bijut se jedin drugogo”.

4.3.3. Possessive pronouns

The possessive pronouns are inflected like adjectives, except for the zero ending in the masculine singular. The forms are:

• moj, moja, moje „my”
• tvoj, tvoja, tvoje „your, thy”
• naš, naša, naše „our”
• vaš, vaša, vaše „your (pl.)”
• svoj, svoja, svoje „one's own” (reflexive)

In the third person, it is most common to use the genitive of the corresponding personal pronoun: jego, jej, ih. These forms are not inflected. Alternatively, one can also use the following forms, which are declined like adjectives:

• jegovy, jegova, jegovo „his”
• jejny, jejna, jejno „her”
• ihny, ihna, ihno „their”

Whenever the possessor is also the subject of the sentence, the reflexive svoj is used, no matter whether this subject is in the third person or not: Ja myju svoje avto „I am washing my car”.

There are also interrogative, definite and indefinite possessive pronouns: čij „whose”, ničij „nobody's”, etc. They are inflected like moj. For more forms, see section 4.3.7.

Just like adjectives, possessive pronouns correspond with the noun they modify in gender, number and case. Here is an example of their declension:

4.3.4. Demonstrative pronouns

The primary demonstrative pronoun in Slovianski is toj „this, that”. When it is necessary to distinguish between this one over here and that one over there, we have two options: either we use sej for „this” and toj for „that, yonder”, or we use tu-toj „this” and tam-toj „that, yonder”. Except for the nominative, sej, toj, tu-toj, and tam-toj are declined like adjectives.

4.3.5. Relative pronouns

The relative pronouns are kotory and koji. Their meanings are identical and they can be used interchangably. Both are declined like an ordinary adjective.

4.3.6. Interrogative, definite and indefinite pronouns

The basic forms are kto „who” and čo (or što) „what”. Derived from these are also several indefinite pronouns, e.g. nekto „somebody”, kto-buď „anybody”, ničo „nothing”, vsečo „everything”. For more forms, see section 4.3.7. They are inflected as follows:

4.3.7. Pronominal adverbs

One of Zamenhof's best inventions was his table of correlatives, a group of interrelated pronouns, adverbs and adjectives. There words have been kept as regular as possible in Slovianski, but not at the expense of recognisability for speakers of Slavic languages. A few virtually impossible words have been left out, and a few other regular forms have been replaced by forms that are common in the natural languages.

¹ In all cases when kotory appears, koji can be used interchangeably.
² In all cases when čo appears, što can be used interchangeably.
³ In all cases when kak or kaki appears, jak/jaki can be used interchangeably.
⁴ In all cases when kogda or -gda appears, kogdy (-gdy) can be used interchangeably.

In the table above, adverbs are in  black , adjectives in  blue , demonstrative and possessive pronouns in  green , interrogative and indefinite pronouns in  red . Irregular forms (i.e. not looking the way they should according to the table) are in italics.

4.4. Numerals

4.4.1. Cardinal numbers

The cardinal numbers are:

Combinations of these are always made from high to low: tri-tyseč četyristo peťdeseť šesť „3,456”.

4.4.2. Ordinal numbers

Just like ordinary adjectives, ordinal numbers match with the noun they modify in gender, case and number. As a rule, they are formed by hardening the last consonant of the corresponding cardinal number and adding the ending -ý (f.ex. pęť > pętý). Except for the following:

1st — prvy
2nd — drugi
3rd — treti
4rd — četvrty
100th — sotny or stoty
1000th — tysečny

When a higher number forms a string, only the last member is modified to create an ordinal number: v tyseč deveťsto osmdeseť četvrtom gode „in the year 1984”.

4.5. Verbs

Verbal conjugation is one of the nightmares of people learning a Slavic language. Verbs are conjugated for three persons in two (sometimes three) numbers, sometimes also for gender as well. Dependent on the language there are numerous tenses, moods, participles and other forms. Perhaps the hardest thing to get used to is aspect: most verbs exist in two different forms („aspects”), perfective and imperfective. Most perfective verbs have an imperfective counterpart and vice versa. Usually, they need to be learned separately. In addition to that, verbs are conjugated according to numerous classes.

In Slovianski, verbal conjugation is simplified to the highest possible extent, but without sacrificing naturalism. As a result:

• Verbs are conjugated for three persons in two numbers. There are three tenses: present tense, past tense and future tense. Furthermore, there are participles, imperatives and verbal nouns.
• Conjugation is as regular as possible, and irregularity is allowed only when it really cannot be avoided.
• The Slavic system of numerous verbal classes (conjugations) is reduced to a system of two stems: the infinitive stem and the present tense stem.
• The number of verbs with a present tense stem that cannot be derived regularly from the infinitive remains limited.
• Endings are unitary, so that no matter the conjugation every form will be instantly recognisable.
• Aspect has been regularised as much as possible, but because the phenomenon occurs in áll Slavic languages, that leaves us little choice but to incorporate it into Slovianski as well. Both forms, perfective and imperfective, are listed on the dictionary.

4.5.1. Infinitive stem and present tense stem

In Slovianski, infinitives always have the ending -ti. The infinitive stem is created by simply removing this ending. The result serves as a starting point for the infinitive, the past tense, the conditional, the past passive participle, and the verbal noun.

For most verbs goes that the present tense stem (used for the present tense, the imperative and the present active participle) can be derived regularly from the infinitive, so that the infinitive is enough to establish the entire conjugation of a verb. Usually, the present tense stem it is identical to the infinitive stem: it can be derived by simply removing the ending -ti from the infinitive: delati > dela-, prositi > prosi-, nesti > nes-. There are, however, a few exceptions:

• monosyllabic stems ending in a vowel (except a) have -j- added to the infinitive stem: biti > bij-, čuti > čuj-
• infinitives on -ovati have a present-tense stem -uj-: kovati > kuj-, dekovati > dekuj-
• infinitives on -nuti have a present-tense stem -n-: tegnuti > tegn-, dvignuti > dvign-

In these cases conjugation is simply a matter of regularly establishing the present tense stem and adding the correct endings to it. A number of verbs, however, use a separate root in the present tense. In most cases, these are verbs of the mixed a/j, a/i and ě/i classes in Slavic. An active user of Slovianski will have to learn both forms. He will notice, however, that in most cases the formation of this second root happens in a predictable way. Whenever the present-tense stem cannot be derived from the infinitive by applying the rules above, it will be given in the dictionary. A few examples: pisati (piš-) „to write”, plakati (plač-) „to cry, weep”, hoteti (hoč-) „to want”, spati (spi-) „to sleep”, videti (vidi-) „to see”, zvati (zov-) „to call”, brati (ber-) „to take (impf.)”, vzeti (vozm-) „to take (pf.)”.

This system gives a fairly accurate approximation of verbal conjugation in the Slavic languages. We are of course aware that it will still generate a few forms that may come across as unnatural and that it is, on the other hand, a lot more complicated than in a language with a fully regular grammar like Esperanto. However, any further simplification would be impossible without creating a greater distance to the natural Slavic languages, and any further naturalisation could not be achieved without subdividing verbs into classes and the like.

4.5.2. Conjugation

Infinitives

All infinitives have the ending -ti: delati „do, make”, umeti „can, to be able”, prositi „to ask”, nesti „to carry”, pisati „to write”, čuti „to feel”, dekovati „to thank”, tegnuti „to pull”.

In general, infinitives regular, so that the ending -ti does not alter the infinitive stem. As a result, Slovianski has mogti „can”, pekti „to bake”, begti „to run” etc. instead of moči, peči and beči. The only exceptions are verbs on d and t, which have infinitives on -sti: klasti „to lay, to put”, pasti „to fall”, gnesti „to crush” etc. To distinguish these verbs from nesti and the like, they are represented in the dictionary as follows: klasti (klad-ti), gnesti (gnet-ti).

Present tense

The present-tense endings are:

• when the present-tense root ends in a vowel: -m, -š, -Ø, -mo, -te, -jut;
• when the present-tense root ends in a consonant: -u, -eš, -e, -emo, -ete, -ut.

Notes:

• In the case of the consonantal stems, -k and -g become -č and -ž before -e. Thus: mog-eš > možeš, etc.
• In the first person singular, -ju can be used instead of -m, and -em instead of -u.
• In the case of i-stems, the 3rd person plural ending -ijut can be substituted by -et, which is closer to how most natural Slavic languages handle this situation.

Examples:

Explanation of our choice for the forms:

• 1st singular: South Slavic, Slovak and Lower Sorbian have only the ending -m; East Slavic only the ending -(j)u; Polish, Czech and Upper Sorbian have both. All in all, the difference is small, but it can be said that -u has a tight majority after consonants, while -m has a tight majority after vowels. In the case of i-stems, Polish has -ju, while Czech has -im; to avoid problems related to -u (like prosi-ju > prošu) we have chosen for -im here.
• 1st plural: the ending -me (present in Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian) has a slight majority over -mo (Ukrainian, Slovene, Serbo-Croat), -my (Polish, Sorbian) and -m (Russian, Belarussian). However, as o is the regular reflex of ъ, this solution is to be prefered.
• 2nd singular and plural: all languages have -š resp. -te.
• 3rd singular: all West and South Slavic languages have a zero ending, Russian always has -t, Ukrainian and Belarussian have both.
• 3rd plural: quite a mess. Endings vary: -at, -a, -u, -ut, -e, -jo, -i etc. Final -t occurs in East Slavic, Bulgarian and Macedonian. The choice for -ut is mostly based on etymology.

Past tense

The past tense in formed by adding the ending -l (masculine singular), -la (feminine singular), -lo (neuter singular), -li (plural) to the infinitive stem. Examples:

One verb has an irregular past tense: the verb idti „to go” has šel, šla, šlo, šli „went”. This goes for its compounds as well.

These forms may be accompanied by a form of the verb byti „to be”, but it may as well be omitted: ja jesm delal "I did" means exactly the same thing as ja delal.

Future tense

The future tense is formed by combining the future tense of the verb byti „to be” with the infinitive. The forms are the same as if a verb with the stem bud- were conjugated in the present tense.