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Slovincian grammar

Slovincian has an inflectional system mostly inherited from Proto-Slavic, with many innovations.

Slovincian has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter; three numbers: singular, dual, and plural; and seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative.^[4][5]

The vocative is largely replaced by the nominative, but masculine animate singular and a few feminine singular nouns retain it.^[4][6][5]

The genitive-locative dual has been almost entirely replaced by the plural equivalents, and only few words kept their original forms, e.g.:^[7][5]

• rãˈkʉ ("hand, arm")
• nôˈgʉ ("foot, leg")
• wôˈczʉ ("eye")
• wùˈszʉ ("ear")

The nominative-accusative-vocative dual is found with masculine and feminine nouns and also with monosyllabic neuter stems in stems with non-alternating final consonants ending with ⟨-ô⟩ and in the word ˈjajê ("egg").^[7][5] The dative-instrumental dual only occurs with monosyllabic stems.^[5]

Nouns can either have non-alternating final stem consonants or alternating final stem consonants. The non-alternating consonants are ⟨s, z, sz, cz, ż, dż, rz, l, j⟩, and the alternating consonants are ⟨p, b, f, v, t, d, k, g, ch, gh, m, n, r⟩.^[8]

Masculine nouns can end in alternating (⟨p, b, f, v, t, d, k, g, ch, gh, m, n, r⟩) and non-alternating (⟨s, z, sz, ż, rz, l, j⟩) consonants, a consonant ending with ⟨-a⟩ (opa), and alternating consonants ending with ⟨-ë⟩ (kamë).^[9] The last group is small and shows an irregular alternation in the non-nominative cases in the singular and all cases in the plural:^[10]

• ˈkamë, ˈkamjen ("stone") > ˈkamjenja (GEN SG). Compare Kashubian: kam, kamiéń, kamiń.
• ˈplômë, ˈplômjen ("flame"). Compare Kashubian: płom, płomiéń

A few masculine nouns ending in alternating consonants add ⟨j⟩ to the stem when declined. Some nouns with ⟨ej⟩ will add ⟨j⟩, others will not.^[9]

• ˈkóń ("horse") > ˈkônja (GEN SG)
• ˈmej ("May") > ˈmejjú (GEN SG)
• ˈroj ("swarm of bees") > ˈrôjú (GEN SG)

Many masculine nouns whose stem ends in ⟨c⟩ and ⟨z⟩ alternate with ⟨cz⟩ and ⟨ż⟩ in the vocative singular.^[10]

Examples:

Examples:

Feminine nouns can end in a consonant, ⟨-a⟩, and ⟨-o⟩.^[35]

Feminine nouns ending in non-alternating consonants always add ⟨-j-⟩ to non-nominative cases except the genitive plural, which takes -∅.^[35]

• ˈdlon ("open palm"), ˈdlonjë (genitive singular), ˈdlon (genitive plural)

A few feminine nouns end in ⟨-i⟩, ⟨-ëw⟩ (⟨-ew⟩), and ⟨-wja⟩. There are two nouns that end in ⟨-ë⟩ and two nouns that end in ⟨-é⟩:^[35]

• ˈcérkwji, ˈcérkjëw, ˈcérkwja ("church") (Compare Kashubian: cerkew, cerczew, cerkwiô)
• polˈnôcë ("midnight")
• ˈkrë (alternatively ˈkrev) ("blood")
• brëˈvjé ("eyebrow")
• ɡôspôˈdënjé ("female host")

It can be noticed that both masculine and feminine nouns can end in a consonant with ⟨-a⟩ ending. Masculine nouns ending in ⟨-a⟩ always refer to a male being and female nouns ending in ⟨-a⟩ a female being; the one exception is ˈslëga ("servant") and nouns ending in ⟨-ola⟩, which can refer to a person of either gender.^[35]

Examples:

Examples:

Examples:

Examples:

Neuter nouns can end in a ⟨-ô⟩, a non-alternating consonant with ⟨-é⟩ ending, a consonant with ⟨-ã⟩ ending, and non-alternating consonants with ⟨-ê⟩ ending, the last two groups being sub-classes of the first.^[46]

Examples: