Slovak declension


The Slovak language, like most Slavic languages and Latin, is an inflected language, meaning that the endings of most words change depending on the given combination of the grammatical gender, the grammatical number and the grammatical case of the particular word in the particular sentence:
a) Gender: There are four grammatical genders in Slovak language: animate masculine, inanimate masculine, feminine and neuter. In popular description, the first two genders are often covered under common masculine gender. Almost all Slovak nouns and adjectives, as well as some pronouns and numerals can be categorized into one of these genders. Exceptions are pluralia tantum, words that are drifting into another gender and are currently neuter, and masculine animals that are animate in singular and mostly inanimate in plural.
b) Number: Like in English, Slovak has singular and plural nouns. Morphological traces of the ancient Indo-European dual number remain, but are not a separate grammar category anymore.
A particular case is associated with three distinct groups of numerals associated with nouns:
c) Morphological cases:
There is also a different form of morphological vocative emerging in spoken language, used with some familiar forms of personal names and familiar forms of kinship words, such as mama – mami, oco – oci, tata, tato – tati, baba, babka – babi. This usage is very similar to the "new Russian vocative", but it is not accepted into standardised codified language. This could have developed out of proper names that were formed using the Hungarian diminutive suffix -i and that are used in spoken Slovak, and therefore is often homonymous with nominative diminutive forms of the names. Other possibility is influence of Czech, where Jani / Zuzi as well as mami / tati / babi is part of Common Czech.

Legend

For each gender, there are four basic declension paradigms.
Note that many nouns have different endings than those of the paradigms in one or more grammatical cases. They are neither defined, nor listed in the following. The complete number of different paradigms for nouns is somewhere around 200.
A very small number of foreign nouns are not declined.

The Masculine Gender

There is also a 5th paradigm for foreign nouns ending in.-i, -y, -e, -í, -é, -ě, -ä and foreign personal names ending in -ü, -ö, which goes as follows:
Masculine animal nouns are declined like chlap in the singular, but in plural usually like dub or like stroj.
Notes on chlap:
Notes on hrdina:
Notes on dub:
Notes on stroj:
There is also a 5th paradigm for feminine nouns ending in -ná or -ovná, where the singular and N pl and A pl are like pekná and the remaining plural is like žena. In the G pl, there are changes in the stem: if the noun ends in -vowel + ná, then this vowel receives an acute, but otherwise -- is inserted.
There is also a 6th paradigm for the feminine nouns ending in -ea, which goes like žena, except that D sg and Lsg are idei, and G pl is ideí without change in the stem.
Notes on žena:
Notes on ulica:
Notes on dlaň:
Notes on kosť:
For neuter nouns ending in -vowel+um/on there is actually a 5th paradigm, which is declined like mesto except that the -um- / -on- is omitted in all cases except N sg and A sg., L sg ends in -u, and G pl in -í .
Notes on mesto:
Notes on srdce:
Notes on vysvedčenie:
Notes on dievča:

Paradigms

Pekný

This paradigm is used for adjectives ending in a hard or neutral consonant + ý

Cudzí

This paradigm is used for adjectives ending in -a soft consonant + í ;
Forms: They are like with pekný, but within the endings always replace ý by í, é by, á by ia, and ú by iu., e.g.: pekný – cudzí, pekné – cudzie, pekný – cudzí, pekná – cudzia, peknú – cudziu.

Otcov

This paradigm is used for adjectives ending in -ov / -in, for example otcov, matkin. All of them are possessive adjectives.

The Comparative and Superlative

The comparative is formed by replacing the adjective ending -ý/y/i/í by -ejší or -ší. There are exact rules for the choice between these two endings and there are several irregular comparatives. Examples:
The comparative forms are declined like cudzí.
The superlative is formed as follows: naj+comparative. Examples: pekný – krajší – najkrajší, hrozný – hroznejší – najhroznejší…
The comparative and superlative of adverbs is formed by simply replacing the -ší from the adjective by -šie.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

There is also the reflexive pronoun sa, which is declined as follows: N: –, G: seba, D: sebe / si, A: seba/sa, L: sebe, I: sebou
Notes:
like ten are declined: tamten, henten, tento, tenže …
like adjectives are declined: for example istý, každý, iný, taký / onaký, všetok, sám, onen, and žiaden = žiadny …

Interrogative (and Relative) and Indefinite pronouns

like kto/čo are declined: nikto, niekto / dakto, niečo / dačo, hocikto, nič, ktosi, čosi …
like adjectives are declined: čí, niečí / dačí / hocičí, ničí, ktorý, aký, nejaký / dajaký /, nijaký / niktorý, čísi, číkoľvek. akýsi, ktorýsi, ktorýkoľvek …

Possessive pronouns

like môj are declined:
not declined are:

Cardinal Numerals

Paradigms

jeden : declined like the adjective pekný;
dva : N: dvaja ; dva ; dve – G: dvoch – D: dvom – A: dvoch ; dva ; dve – L: dvoch – I: dvoma;
tri : N: traja ; tri – G: troch – D: trom – A: troch ; tri – L: troch – I: troma / tromi.
päť : N: piati / päť ; päť – G: piatich – D: piatim – A: piatich / päť ; päť – L: piatich – I: piatimi;
100, 200, 300… 900; 1000, 2000, 3000… 9000: not declined, but 1000 can be declined like päť.

Compound Numerals

They are declined like adjectives.
Note: Ordinal numerals are formed by adding adjective endings to the cardinal numbers, for example: