Appendix:Slovene nouns

Slovene has three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter, although they do not necessarily correlate with the actual gender of what noun represents (e. g. dekle (“girl”) is neuter gender). Each gender has four different declensions, although only seven (three masculine, three feminine and one neuter declension) are more common. Each declension has many alterations and exceptions, as well as different accentuation types. First and fourth masculine declensions also differentiate between animate and inanimate nouns.

Slovene officially has six cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, instrumental), although the seventh case, vocative, was in use until 18th century and is still used in some borrowings from Serbo-Croatian (e. g. bog → bože (rarely)). Nowadays, it has the same endings as nominative, but all acute accents change to circumflex, so there is still a little distinction. This form is in Slovene called ogȏvorni imenovȃlnik (literally “addressive nominative”), but is translated as vocative for simplicity reasons.

Each noun can follow one of the four following accentual types:

1. fixed (accent is always on the same syllable on the stem) – e. g. napȍr → napóra
2. mobile (accent switches between two syllables on the stem) – e. g. rázred → razrẹ́da
3. ending (accent is on the fill vowel or on the ending) – e. g. pə̏s → psȁ
4. mixed (accent switches between stem and ending) – e. g. mọ̑ž → možȃ

List of declensions

Masculine

• First masculine declension (o-stem) – genitive singular ending -a or -u, e. g. napor, pes, grad, dan, človek
• Second masculine declension (a-stem) – genitive singular ending -e, e. g. vodja, vojvoda, Luka
• Third masculine declension (no endings) – does not have endings in any case, e. g. kant (rare)
• Fourth masculine declension (adjectival) – genitive singular ending -ega, e. g. moški, dežurni (for nominalized adjectives)

Feminine

• First feminine declension (a-stem and former v-stem) – genitive singular ending -e and genitive plural is not -ih, e. g. žena, cerkev, lipa
• Second feminine declension (i-stem) – genitive singular ending -i, e. g. kost, luč, zanimivost, misel
• Third feminine declension (no endings) – does not have endings in any case, e. g. mami, Karin
• Fourth feminine declension (adjectival) – genitive singular ending -e and genitive plural ending -ih, e. g. dežurna (for nominalized adjectives)

Neuter

• First neuter declension (o-stem and former s-, t-, n-stem) – genitive singular ending -a, e. g. mesto, drevo, breme, dekle, tele, poslopje, oko, uho, igo
• Second neuter declension (a-stem) – only personal pronouns follow this declension
• Third neuter declension (no endings) – no endings in any case, e. g. tri, doma (rare)
• Fourth neuter declension (adjectival) – genitive singular ending -ega, e. g. duhovo, Krško (for nominalized adjectives, rare)

Additionally, some nouns switch gender.

Multiword nouns

When a noun composed of two or more words, sometimes all words are declined as they would be if alone, but there are additional rules. In the following given examples, the second form is genitive singular.

Proper & common nouns

If all parts of a proper nouns grammatically match then all of them are declined, such as Ivan Cankar Ivana Cankarja and Mokro Polje Mokrega Polja. The exception are surnames of females, which in most cases follow third declensions and have the same ending in all cases (Majda Vrhovnik Majde Vrhovnik), but surnames following female declensions (usually ending in -a) can be also declined following the original declension (Ana Kopriva Ane Kopriva/Ane Koprive). If both females and males with the same surname are mentioned, the surname is declined following original declension if the last name listed is male and follow the exception if the last name listed is female, but both first names are declined as they would normally: Pino in Pia Mlakar → Pina in Pie Mlakar (last listed first name is female) and Pia in Pino Mlakar → Pie in Pina Mlakarja (last listed first name is male). In combination of two names, such as Šmarje - Sap and Gozd - Martuljek, both nouns are declined (Šmarje - Sapa, Gozda - Martuljka).

If a part of the composed noun does not grammatically match, it usually follows third declensions, such as Hotel Turist (hotel named "Turist") Hotela Turista, except in some rare cases, such as Založba Lipa (publishing house named "Lipa") Založbe Lipe. If the first part of a compound loanword is considered an adjective or is considered not to be able to stan by itself, then this part also follows third declensions, such as Downing Street Downing Streeta 'Down Street', Kon Tiki Kon Tikija, Monte Carlo Monte Carla, U Tant U Tanta 'U Thant', Mao Cetung Mao Cetunga 'Mao Zedong', but some can be declined following the usual declension or the third, such as Rio de Janeiro Ria de Janeira/Rio de Janeira. Some of these names can also be shortened to only the first word, which in that case follows the usual declension Rio Ria 'Rio de Janeiro' and Mao Maa. Compound loanword nouns with unusual endings for their gender or number follow third declensions: Pickwick Papers Pickwick Papers, École des Hautes Études École des Hautes Études. Part of names, called predimki in Slovene (lit. forenames), part between the name and surname, which was originally usually an article, also follow third declensions: fra Bartolo fra Bartola, Dos Passos Dos Passosa. Some other common words that fall into this category are also van, von, de, Don, O', Las, Los, La, and M'.

When a common noun has a proper noun as a modifier, the proper noun in some cases follows the usual declension and sometimes the third: mesto Ljubljana mesta Ljubljane (the city of Ljubljana), reka Soča reke Soče (the Soča river), as opposed to kraj Mostec kraja Mostec (the town of Mostec), gostilna Gorjanc gostilne Gorjanc (a restaurant named "Gorjanc"). Some can be declined both ways, such as podjetje Iskra podjetja Iskra/podjetja Iskre (Iskra company).

Vernacular & Vernacularized nouns

In those cases, all words are declined as usual, such as črno zlato črnega zlata 'coal' and človek žaba človeka žabe, nominative plural ljudje žabe 'frogman', except when they are part of the same word written apart where the first part follows third declensions, such as vikend hiša 'holiday cottage' vikend hiše and žiro račun 'deposit account' žiro računa. In these cases, writing words together is favored (vikendhiša, žiroračun)

Non-vernacularized nouns

Nouns that are not fully integrated in Slovene (are not fully vernacularized) are split into two categories: quoted (citatne) and semi-quoted (polcitatne), depending on how much they are integrated.

All parts of masculine semi-quoted nouns are usually declined following the usual inflection pattern, which is either first, second, or fourth masculine declension, but some that have an unusual ending follow the third masculine declension: nervus sympathicus nervusa sympathicusa, but curriculum vitae curriculuma vitae. Feminine semi-quoted nouns ending in -a in nominative singular are declined following the first feminine declension and others follow the third: alma mater alme mater and Smilax aspera Smilax aspere.

Quoted nouns are declined as originally in the language they were borrowed from: alma mater almae matris, curriculum vitae curriculi vitae, first lady first lady, nominative plural first ladies. This declension is always stylistically marked.