Template:lv-decl-noun/documentation

Usage

This template takes up to six parameters, of which the first three are obligatory and the rest are optional (though some of them are obligatory if others are present).

{{lv-decl-noun | noun stem | nom. sg. ending | declension type | special cases switch | non-palatalized final consonant | palatalized final consonant }}

1. The first parameter is the noun stem, i.e., the basic stem without the nominative singular ending. This is basically the stem to which all declensional suffixes are added. For some declension types, there are also changes in the stem-final consonants; as the making of this template evolves, further parameters will be included to deal with them.
2. The second parameter is the nominative singular ending, i.e., basically -s, -š, -is, -us, -a, or -e.
3. The third parameter is the declension type, as an abbreviated English ordinal number: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th.
4. The fourth parameter involves incomplete paradigms. If this parameter is 'no-sg', then the noun in question is only has plural forms: the singular column in its declension table is left empty (and the noun is automatically made a member of the Category:Latvian pluralia tantum). If this parameter is set to 'no-pl', then the noun in question only has singular forms: the plural column in its declension table is left empty.
5. The fifth and sixth parameters are the consonant alternations found in those declensions (2nd and 4th, and also in a few irregular nouns) in which the final consonant of the stem has one non-palatalized and one palatalized variant that occur in different declension forms. For example, brālis ('brother') has as the stem-final consonant the non-palatalized l in some forms (e.g., dative singular brālim) and the palatalized ļ in the other forms (e.g., genitive singular brāļa).
6. The seventh parameter is used to mark irregular gender: if, e.g., it is equal to 'm' for fourth declension nouns, it gets the right (masculine) dative singular ending; if it is equal to 'mi', it gets both the masculine and the feminine dative singular endings.
7. The eighth parameter is used to categorize proper nouns: if it is set to 'proper', the word falls into the corresponding proper noun (not simply noun) categories.

Irregular vocatives

• keep-s=1 as its name suggests can be used for monosyllabic words that keep their -s in vocative, e.g., the vocatives of tēvs, dēls, draugs will be tēvs!, dēls!, draugs! (not tēv!, dēl!, draug!). Note: this doesn't seem to apply to monosyllabic proper nouns, e.g., the vocative of Gints, Ģirts will be Gint!, Ģirt! This also doesn't apply to seemingly monosyllabic words whose stems end in a liquid or nasal consonant (l, r, n), e.g., biedrs, bebrs, etc. Although morphologically the latter group appears to be monosyllabic, liquids can be syllabic in Latvian (i.e., form syllable nucleus) thus phonetically they can be viewed as two-syllable words. Their vocatives would be biedr!, bebr!
• drop-v=1 stands for "drop vowel." Some feminine kinship terms (e.g., māte, meita) that are commonly used to address people conventionally drop their vowel in vocative: māt!, meit! This is also the case with diminutive endings -ītis, -īte: puisīt!, meitenīt!

TODO: while the vocatives in the latter category (with a dropped vowel) will be more common (for the particular categories mentioned) instances where it's retained can probably be found as well (māte!, meita!, meitenīte!, puisīti!) as these forms match either the lemma (or accusative) creating no need for extra form-of's, an option to have two vocative forms could be added some time in the future (this would probably be done via {{lv-decl-noun-table}}.)