Latvian declension

Latvian declension describes the declension of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals in the Latvian language. There is a system of seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative) in Latvian.

Nouns

Latvian has two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine.

Latvian nouns can be classified as either declinable or indeclinable. Most Latvian nouns are declinable, and regular nouns belong to one of six declension classes (three for masculine nouns, and three for feminine nouns).

Latvian nouns have seven grammatical cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. The instrumental case is always identical to the accusative in the singular, and to the dative in the plural. It is only used as a free-standing case (i.e., in the absence of a preposition) in highly restricted contexts in modern Latvian. (See below for a true prepositional case, the ablative.)

Masculine declensions

The three masculine declensions have the following identifying characteristics:
*1st declension: nom. sing. in "-s" or "-š", thematic vowel "-a-" (e.g. "vīrs" "man, husband")
*2nd declension: nom. sing. in "-is" (or "-ns/-ss", see below), thematic vowel "-i-" (e.g. "skapis" "shelf")
*3rd declension: nom. sing. in "-us", thematic vowel "-u-" (e.g. "tirgus" "market, bazaar")

The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following table:

Other consonants and clusters of consonants undergo more complex changes:

Examples

The declension of the adjective "zils/zila" "blue" is given below.

Pronouns Personal pronouns The third person personal pronouns in Latvian have a regular nominal declension, and they have distinct masculine and feminine forms. The first and second person pronouns, and the reflexive pronoun, show no gender distinction, and have irregular declensions. The interrogative/relative pronoun "kas" "who, what" has the same declension, but it has only singular forms (and no locative form, with the adverb "kur" "where" used instead). The same applies to forms derived from "kas": "nekas" "nothing", "kaut kas" "something", etc. The intensive pronoun "pats/pati" (cf. "I myself", "they themselves") is irregular:The ablative is generally not presented as a separate grammatical case in traditional Latvian grammars, because it appears exclusively with prepositions. One can say instead that prepositions requiring the genitive in the singular require the dative in the plural. The instrumental case, on the other hand, cannot be eliminated so easily, because it can be used in some contexts without any preposition: [See the discussion in Andronov (2001).] * "vīrs sarkanu bārdu" "a man with a red beard" (singular: instrumental = accusative) * "meitene zilām acīm" "a girl with blue eyes" (plural: instrumental = dative) Declensions It is generally believed that Latvian has 6 declensions, but a seventh declension appears to have existed.Fact|date=October 2007 An example of inflection of words "viltus" ("deceit") and "dzirnus" ("mill" - dialectalFact|date=October 2007):It is worth noting however that in modern Latvian noun "viltus" has a masculine grammatical gender and is inflected according to 3rd declension. [ [http://letonika.lv/groups/default.aspx?r=1100&q=viltus&title=viltus/1&g=5 Letonika.lv - atbildes, kuras tu meklē ] ] Dual number Old Latvian had also a Dual number. Nowadays perhaps in some dialects the dual might be used only in some words representing body parts,Fact|date=October 2007 e.g. "divi roki, kāji, auši, akši, nāši" 'two hands, legs, ears, eyes, nostrils', in such phrases like: "skatīties ar abi akši" 'to look with both eyes', "klausīties ar abi auši" 'to listen with both ears', "ņemt ar abi roki" 'to take with both hands', "lekt ar abi kāji" 'to jump with both legs'.Fact|date=October 2007 The old Dual endings of all cases: Locative case forms The locative case allegedly once had three forms:Fact|date=October 2007 inessive (the regular and most common form), illative (for example in old Latvian texts: "iekš(k)an tan pirman vietan", in modern Latvian it has been replaced by the inessive, but vestiges of what supposedly once was an illative final "-an" changed to an "-ā"Fact|date=October 2007 remain in some adverbs, e.g. "āran" > "ārā" 'outdoors, outside', "priekšan" > "priekš" 'for'), allative (only used in a few idiomatic expressions like: "augšup", "lejup", "mājup", "kalnup", "šurp", "turp"). The later two are adverb-forming cases.Fact|date=October 2007 See also * Latvian conjugation * Latvian prepositions Notes References * * cite book|first=Justyna and Daniel|last=Petit|title=Parlons letton|publisher=L'Harmattan|location=Paris|year=2004|isbn=2-7475-5910-6 External links * [http://www.latvianstuff.com/Language.html Overview of the Latvian Language (en)] Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР Fred Claire Jiuzhaigou Huanglong Airport Look at other dictionaries: Latvian grammar — The Latvian language is a moderately inflected language, with complex nominal and verbal morphology. Word order is relatively free, but the unmarked order is SVO. Latvian has pre nominal adjectives and both prepositions and postpositions. There… …   Wikipedia Latvian prepositions — This article describes the use of prepositions and postpositions in Latvian grammar.The lists below are organized according to the case of the noun phrase following the preposition. 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