1 NOUN DECLENSION (DEKLINACIJA IMENICA) Q: What is a noun declension?

A: Its how a noun changes (declines) its form depending on its position in a sentence, i.e., whether its a subject, a direct object, an object of a preposition. This different positioning of a noun in a sentence is called a case (of a noun). Nouns in Serbian have seven cases as shown in Table 2 below. Before I suffocate you with further grammar lingo, let me give you a practical example of a noun declension. For fun, Ill decline my name: Larisa. Table 1: Declension of proper name Larisa (feminine noun) Larisa is a good teacher. Larisa je dobra nastavnica. Vidim Larisu. On daje knjigu Larisi. Idem sa Larisom. I see Larisa.
(Larisu = direct object; Larisu = accusative case)

(Larisa = subject; Larisa = nominative case)

He is giving a book to Larisa.

(Larisi = indirect object; Larisi = dative case)

I am going with Larisa.

(Larisom = object of a preposition sa; Larisom = instrumental case)

As you can see, my name keeps changing its phonological shape (ending) depending on where it stands in a sentence. In Table 2 below I give the general noun declension patterns and in Table 3, I provide additional examples of noun declensions.

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Table 2: Suffixes (or endings) for Serbian Noun Declensions SINGULAR Class I Class I Class II (masculine) (neuter) (feminine: -a ending) window village woman Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative/Locative Instrumental Vocative PLURAL Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative/Locative Instrumental Vocative prozor prozor prozor-a prozor-u prozor-om prozor-e windows prozor-i prozor e prozor-a prozor-ima prozor-ima prozor-i selo selo sel-a sel-u sel-om selo villages sel-a sel-a sel-a sel-ima sel-ima sel-a ena en-u en-e en-i en-om en-o women en-e en-e en-a en-ama en-ama en-e

Class III (feminine: zero ending) love ljubav ljubav ljubav-i ljubav-i ljubav-i (or-ju) ljubav-i loves ljubav-i ljubav-i ljubav-i ljubav-ima ljubav-ima ljubav-i

As you can see, there are basically four declension classes, although I lumped neuter nouns in Class I, as many traditional grammars do. Each noun belongs to one of these classes depending on its phonological form of the stem. i) ii) iii) iv) If the noun ends in a consonant, most probably, its a Class I masculine noun (e.g. prozor). If it ends in o in singular nominative case, its a neuter noun (e.g. sel-o) If the noun ends in a in singular nominative case, its a Class II noun, and these nouns are feminine. The Class III nouns are all feminine and end in a consonant, like Class I nouns. Class III nouns typically denote abstract objects (e. g. ljubav love, smrt death, bolest illness). This class of nouns is not productive, i.e. when a new noun that ends in a consonant is imported into the language, it goes into Class I (masculine) nouns, not into Class III (feminine nouns).

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Table 3: Some examples of noun declensions used in sentences: Serbian English Grammatical function of the noun in the sentence (case of noun) The window is small. Prozor = subject (nominative) Prozor je mali. The village is nice. Selo = subject (nominative) Selo je lepo. The woman came. ena = subject (nominative) ena je dola. Love is tricky. Ljubav = subject (nominative) Ljubav je varljiva. Prozor = object (accusative) Razbila sam prozor. I broke the window. I saw that village. Selo = object (accusative) Videla sam to selo. I met that woman. enu = subject (accusative) Srela sam tu enu. I live in the village. Selu = prepositional object (locative) ivim na selu. Give this to the eni = indirect object (dative) Daj to eni. woman. I walk with the enama = prepositional object Idem sa enama. women. (instrumental) Come, woman! eno= vocative (for addressing) Dodji, eno! If you still dont understand when to use these various noun forms, wait until you learn the basic sentence patterns and eventually, this will make sense. Just try to remember the nominative and accusative case forms for now. However, memorization of other case endings is necessary for a perfect fluency.

Larisa Zlatic

Larisa Zlatic Language Services http://www.serbiantranslator.com