Latvian declension


In the Latvian language, nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals are inflected in six declensions. There are seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative.

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.
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 used as a free-standing case only in highly restricted contexts in modern Latvian.

Masculine declensions

The three masculine declensions have the following identifying characteristics:
The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following table:
The 2nd declension exhibits palatalization of the final stem consonant in the genitive singular and throughout the plural. Exceptions to this include compound nouns and proper names ending in -dis or -tis.
A small subclass of 2nd declension nouns have identical nominative and genitive singular. These are part of the so-called consonant stem nouns: e.g. akmens "stone", asmens "blade", mēness "moon", rudens "autumn", sāls "salt", ūdens "water" and zibens "lightning". The 2nd declension noun suns "dog" has the regular genitive singular suņa.

Feminine declensions

The three feminine declensions can be characterized as follows:
The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following
The final stem consonant is palatalized in the genitive plural of 5th and 6th declension nouns. Exceptions to this include loanwords such as epizode in the 5th declension and a handful of words in the 6th declension: acs "eye", auss "ear", balss "voice", zoss "goose".
The 4th and 5th declensions include a number of masculine nouns, or common gender nouns that are either masculine or feminine depending on their use in context. Some surnames belong to the 6th declension for both masculine and feminine. In these cases, the masculine nouns take the same endings as given in the table above, except in the dative singular:
The 6th declension noun ļaudis "people" is masculine. It has no singular forms, only regular plural forms.

Consonant shift (stem-final iotation and palatalization)

Some of the case endings given in the declension tables above begin with an underlying palatal approximant -. This is true of the 2nd declension genitive singular, all forms of the 2nd declension plural, and the genitive plural of the 5th and 6th declensions.
In Latvian literature this process is collectively referred to as līdzskaņu mija, i.e., consonant shift. Jotēšana, i.e., iotation can be further distinguished as a subcategory. In English Academia the term "iotation" is often used to refer to properties of Eastern Slavic vowels wherein they acquire an underlying which palatalizes the preceding consonants regardless of their position within a word which is similar to the phenomenon of assimilative palatalization of consonants in Lithuanian. Latvian however does not have assimilative palatalization of consonants and the term "iotation" is used strictly in the sense of stem-final labial consonants being "affixed with an iota" in 2nd, 5th and 6th declension nouns.
changenom. sing. gen. plur. translation
p → pjupeupju"river"
b → bjgulbisgulbju"swan"
m → mjzemezemju"land"
v → vjdzērvedzērvju"crane"
f → fjžirafežirafju"giraffe"

Besides labial consonants that are iotated, coronal consonants and affricates and their clusters can be said to undergo palatalization. Thus, for example, plain Latvian ⟨L⟩ is palatalized to ⟨Ļ⟩, a palatal lateral approximant -.
changenom. sing. gen. plur. translation
c → člācislāču"bear"
d → žbriedisbriežu"deer"
l → ļbrālisbrāļu"brother"
n → ņdvīnisdvīņu"twin"
s → šlasislašu"salmon"
t → šnaktsnakšu"night"
z → žvāzevāžu"vase"
sn → šņkrāsnskrāšņu"stove"
zn → žņzvaigznezvaigžņu"star"
sl → šļkāpsliskāpšļu"stirrup"
zl → žļzizliszižļu"baton"
ln → ļņvilnisviļņu"wave"
ll → ļļlelleleļļu"doll"
nn → ņņpinnepiņņu"acne"
st → šrīksterīkšu"rod"

History, exceptions and umlaut

After the Soviet occupation of Latvia minor reforms were made to Latvian orthography, namely the use of long ⟨ō⟩, the ⟨ch⟩ digraph and the use of "softened" ⟨ŗ⟩ were abolished. The use of ⟨ō⟩, ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ŗ⟩ is often collectively referred to as “Endzelīns’ orthography.” The abolition of diacriticized ⟨ŗ⟩ effectively makes the trill sound the only coronal consonant that does not undergo stem-final consonant shift.
For example, the gen.pl. of cepure "hat" is cepuru. It is, however, still used among people of Latvian origin and books outside of Latvia.
Proponents of ⟨ŗ⟩ point out that it aids in distinguishing a number of homographic heterophones and helps distinguishing the so-called "open ⟨e⟩" and "close ‹e›" and prevents the appearance of their alternations in nominal paradigm, metaphony
NominativeOld orthographyNew orthography or Near-open front unrounded vowel| Tone Translation
mērismēŗamēramẽraGen.Sing. plague
mērsmēramēramẽraGen.Sing. mayor
mērsmēramēramẽraGen.Sing. measure
mērītmēramēramẽra3rd Pers.Ind. - he measures
bērtbērubērubêruI poured
bēresbēŗubērubêruGen.Pl. funeral
bērisbēŗubērubẽruGen.Pl. a bay horse

The use of ⟨ŗ⟩ has it that gen.sing. "plague" mēŗa would be distinguishable from gen.sing. "measure" mēra and bēŗu would not show umlaut being pronounced with a close like the rest of its paradigm. Further, besides the 5th declension plurale tantum noun bēres another word that would have stem final consonant shift can be introduced - 2nd declension bēris both their gen.pl. will be bēŗu if ⟨ŗ⟩ is used. One could argue that the appearance of umlaut in gen.pl. "funeral" now allows to distinguish it from gen.pl. "bay horse", however, the more common occurrence of the words "I poured " and "of funeral" becoming perfect homophones is likely to be seen as a net-loss by proponents of ‹ŗ›.
In Latvian literature it is usually assumed that open is the underlying value of e which became the more close when followed by a palatal element - either a front vowel or the palatal approximant
In fact, consonant shift can be viewed as a means of blocking umlaut alternations in nominal paradigm, e.g., the 5th declension in -e has front vocalic endings in all cases except pl.gen. which has the back vowel -u and pl.gen. happens to be the only case where consonant shift takes place for this declension
Some suggest that the abolition of Endzelīns' orthography in 1946 and 1957 was motivated by the fact that after the occupation Soviet authorities were promoting Russian-born Latvians for positions in the new administration, who, in turn, were not familiar with the developments that had taken place during the decades of independence.
During the Soviet rule one could observe what might seem motivation to simplify consonant shift further. Thus, for example, in a 1971 book by Aldonis Vēriņš Puķkopība the pl. gen. of narcise is consistently spelled narcisu instead of narcišu.
A 2000 handbook on Latvian orthography lists the following words as exceptions to consonant shift due to reasons of euphony.
nom.sing./nom.pl.gen.sing./gen.pl.translation
GuntisGuntaGuntis
AtisAtaAtis
viesisviesuguest
gaišmatisgaišmatua light-haired person
tālskatistālskatutelescope
pasepasupassport
gāzegāzugas
mutemutumouth
kastekastubox, carton
tortetortucake
azoteazotubosom
acsacueye
aussausuear
balssbalsuvoice
dzelzsdzelzuiron
valstsvalstucountry, state
zosszosugoose
debesisdebesusky

This list is far from exhaustive. 2nd declension two-syllable male names with stems ending in ‹d,t› never undergo consonant shift Besides body parts there is a number of other words that historically do not undergo consonant shift, e.g., the name of the town of Cēsis. Words with stem-final -st are not subject to consonant shift this includes all feminine forms of -ist nouns Further in a number of words consonant shift has been dropped to avoid homophony, thus gen.pl. of "passport" pase would be homophonous with "of selves" pašu, the same goes for gāze "gas" which would be homophonous with 1st pers. indicative of the verb gāzt "to topple." Perhaps only a small number could be genuinely attributed to euphony, e.g., gaišmaša due to two concomitant sounds occurring within a three-syllable word which some might find "unpleasantly sounding."

Dorsal consonants

As has been noted stem-final labial consonants undergo iotation, whereas stem-final unpalatalized coronal consonants and affricates undergo case-specific palatalization and unlike Lithuanian, Latvian does not exhibit assimilative palatalization. However, the last large group of consonants, the dorsal consonants are an exception to both of these rules. Latvian has 3 unpalatalized dorsal consonants, the voiced and, the latter occurring only in loanwords, represented respectively by the letters ⟨K⟩, ⟨G⟩ and ⟨H⟩, as well as palatalized versions of the natively occurring ones and represented by the letters ⟨Ķ⟩ and ⟨Ģ⟩ respectively.
Similar to the "hard and soft C" and "hard and soft G" distinction in many European languages Latvian seeks to palatalize and when they are proceeded by front vowels to either:
Unlike most Western European languages where the reader is expected to predict the "softness" or "hardness" of the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ based on whether they are proceeded by a front vowel and the orthography doesn't change, the highly phonetic orthography of Latvian requires any such changes to be shown in writing.
As with assimilative palatalization and before a front vowel take on their palatalized values regardless of their position in a word, furthermore, has been used historically to assimilate pre-front vowel Voiceless velar fricative| and Voiceless palatal fricative| For example:
When or is followed by a foreign front vowel sound not present in Latvian vowel inventory and when it's changed to a front vowel the palatalization will occur as well. This is the case with German ⟨ü⟩, for example:
Consequently as in the case of ķēķis, for example, no stem-final consonant shift can take place, cf. milzis - milža but ķēķis - ķēķa, since the is already palatalized.
As is evident with the loan ģimene "family," from the Lithuanian language, and are over-represented in borrowed lexical items. By comparing Lithuanian gimti and Latvian dzimt it can be observed that replacing dorsal consonants with affricates before a front vowel is the more "native" way reserved for pre-front vowel dorsal consonant changes in native words as can be observed in Rīga → rīdzinieks, logs → palodze or koks → kociņš

Indeclinable nouns

Some nouns do not belong to any of the declension classes presented above, and show no case or number inflection. For the most part, these indeclinable nouns are unassimilated loanwords or foreign names that end in a vowel. Some example are: taksi "taxi", ateljē "studio", Deli "Delhi".

Adjectives

Adjectives in Latvian agree in case, number, and gender with the noun they modify. In addition, they express the category of definiteness. Latvian has no definite and indefinite articles, but the form of the adjective chosen can determine the correct interpretation of the noun phrase. For example, consider the following examples:
In both sentences, the adjective is feminine singular accusative, to agree with the noun māju "house". But the first sentence contains the indefinite form of the adjective, while the second one contains the definite form.

Indefinite declension

Masculine indefinite adjectives are declined like nouns of the first declension, and feminine indefinite adjectives are declined like nouns of the fourth declension.

Definite declension

In the history of Latvian, definite noun phrases were constructed with forms of an old pronoun *jis; traces of this form can still be seen in parts of the definite adjectival paradigm. Note that only definite adjectives are used in the vocative case. The nominative form can always be used as a vocative. If, however, the modified noun appears as a vocative form distinct from its nominative form, then the vocative form of the adjective can optionally be identical to its accusative form in -o.

Examples

The declension of the adjective zils/zila "blue" is given below.
Adjectives containing the suffix -ēj- have reduced case endings in the dative and locative. For example, vidējs, -a "central" has the following definite paradigm:

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.
*After a preposition governing the dative, the dative forms manim, tevim, and sevim are possible. These forms may replace genitive and accusative pronouns with other prepositions, too.

Possessive pronouns

There are that change endings depending on the declension.
The below table of endings replace the bolded characters above for the various declensions,
In addition to the pronouns that have different declensions, there are pronouns that stay the same in all declensions,
The following tables show the declension of the demonstratives tas "that" and šis "this".
The interrogative/relative pronoun kas "who, what" has the same declension, but it has only singular forms. The same applies to forms derived from kas: nekas "nothing", kaut kas "something", etc.
The intensive pronoun pats/pati is irregular:
Other pronouns and determiners exhibit regular adjectival declension:
In Latvian there are two types of numerals: cardinals and ordinals.
The numbers from 1 to 9 are declinable. The number 1 combines with a singular noun, 2 through 9 with plural nouns. With the exception of trīs "3", these numbers take the same endings as indefinite adjectives.
The following cardinal numbers are indeclinable:
Ordinal numbers are declined like definite adjectives. In compound numbers, only the final element is ordinal, e.g. trīsdesmit otrajā minūtē "in the 32nd minute".

Archaic forms

Instrumental case

The following table illustrates case syncretism in the Latvian instrumental form. In the singular, the instrumental is identical to the accusative. In the plural, the instrumental is identical to the dative.
Some linguists also distinguish an ablative case that is identical to the genitive in the singular and the dative in the plural.
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. Also it is important to note that the Latvian ablative case is not an archaism but rather an innovation.
The ablative case emerged in Latvian under the circumstances of shifting the government of almost all prepositions in the plural to the dative form. This shift was caused by the loss of the old accusative form in the singular, which became identical to the instrumental form: A.-I. vīru, kāju, māsu. In the plural, most feminine nouns had identical forms for the dative and the instrumental case. The masculine form ending in "-īs" was dropped and the dative ending was introduced there by analogy: I. vīrīs >> vīriem. Therefore, the instrumental case merged with the dative in the plural and the accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns had in the meantime levelled their G.Sg.~N.Pl.~Acc.Pl. endings: GSg,NPl,AccPl kājas; AccSg,ISg,GPl kāju. Therefore, prepositional constructions became ambiguous: uz pļavas - "on the meadow" or "to the meadows"; uz pļavu - "on the meadows" or "to the meadow". To at least partly reduce this, the dative case was introduced after most prepositions in the plural: uz pļavas, uz pļavu, uz pļavām. Therefore, almost all the prepositions that governed the genitive started taking the dative-instrumental case in the plural, giving a new birth to the ablative case.
The instrumental case, on the other hand, cannot be eliminated so easily, because it can be used in some contexts without any preposition:
Old Latvian had also a Dual number. Nowadays perhaps in some dialects the dual might be used only in some words representing body parts, e.g. divi roki, kāji, auši, akši, nāši 'two hands, legs, ears, eyes, nostrils', in such phrases like: skatīties ar abāmu akšāmu 'to look with both eyes', klausīties ar abāmu aušāmu 'to listen with both ears', ņemt ar abāmu rokāmu 'to take with both hands', lekt ar abāmu kājāmu 'to jump with both legs'.
The old Dual endings of all cases:

Locative case forms

The locative case allegedly once had three forms: inessive, illative, allative. The later two are adverb-forming cases.