S.KRAUSE

The Serbo-Croatian Noun System

The topic of this page is the Serbo-Croatian noun system, with particular attention paid to the various case endings.

Serbo-Croatian has three noun genders (masculine, neuter, and feminine), and 8 noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, and vocative). The locative takes the same endings as the dative in all genders and numbers. Depending on gender and number, many cases share endings. Notice, for example, that the masculine and neuter singular accusative is the same as the nominative.

Nominative:

The subject of a clause is in the nominative.

Accusative:

The direct object of a clause is put into the accusative. Also, the objects of certain prepositions take the accusative. Verbs of motion take the accusative.

Genitive:

The genitive expresses possession. This case is also used after certain prepositions.

Dative:

Indirect objects take the dative. The dative is also used in certain other expressions.

Locative:

The locative indicates location, and is used do describe position with such prepositions as na and u.

Instrumental:

The instrumental is used with such prepostions as s (with).

Vocative:

The vocative is used when addressing people directly.

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Let us begin with the nominative form of the Serbo-Croatian nouns. It is this form in which we find them in dictionaries, and this case also tells us the gender of a given noun.

Most masculine nouns end in a consonant. Examples include:

grad	city
Hrvat	Croat
spomenik	monument

Some masculine nouns (such as posao, 'work') end in 'o'. These nouns originally ended in 'l', but over time the 'l' turned into 'o', and in cases besides the nominative and accusatuve singular, the 'l' returns. Also, the 'a' is dropped. Thus, the locative of posao is poslu. In many masculine nouns, a final 'a' before an 'r' is dropped in other cases. We call this the 'movable a'. Take the word centar, 'center', for example. In the locative it becomes centru. Note that in the genitive plural the 'movable a' stays.

Masculine nouns also present irregularities/difficulties in other ways as well. For example, in the plural cases, single syllable masculine nouns add the suffix ov or ev. ov the usual ending, but ev is used with nouns ending in weak consonants such as 'c', 'j', 'lj', etc. So, for example, the genitive plural of grad is gradova, and the nominative plural of broj, 'number', is brojevi.

Neuter nouns end in either 'e' or 'o'. Examples include:

pivo	beer
selo	village
more	sea

Some neuter nouns, such as drvo, 'tree', change when taking case endings. For example, it adds et, so that the genitive singular is drveta and the locative singular is drvetu. Note, however, that since the accusative singular form of neuter nouns is the same as that of the nominative, no change is made.

Almost all feminine nouns end in 'a'. Examples include:

devojka	girl
zgrada	building
kava	coffee

There is a small set of feminine nouns that end in a consonant in the nominative singular. An example is stvar, 'thing', which takes no ending in the accusative, adds i as its ending for the singular gentive and dative (and locative), as well as for the plural nominative and accusative. In the instrumental singular such nouns end in i, and for the instrumental, dative, and locative plural they take ima instead of ama.

There are a few other spelling rules for Serbo-Croatian nouns. For example, if i is added as an ending after 'k', 'g', or 'h', these change to 'c', 'z', and 's' respectively. The the nominative plural of spomenik is spomenici, and the locative singular of biblioteka is biblioteci. This does not apply to proper names, however.

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Case Endings for Serbo-Croatian Nouns

Cases	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Nominative	consonant	e/o	a	+ i	e/o > a	a > e
Accusative	consonant	e/o	a > u	+ e	e/o > a	a > e
Genitive	+ a	e/o > a	a > e	+ a	e/o > a	a
Dative	+ u	e/o > u	a > i	+ ima	e/o > ima	a > ama
Locative	+ u	e/o > u	a > i	+ ima	e/o > ima	a > ama
Instrumental	+ em/om	e/o > em/om	a > om	+ ima	e/o > ima	a > ama
Vocative	+ e/u	e/o	a > e/o	+ i	e/o > a	a > e