Slovak Noun Declension

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_effect
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Slovak Noun Declension

Postby _effect » Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:14 am

Hello,
I am in need of a native or fluent speaker of both Slovak and English to explain something to me. I have recently taken up declension, or skloňovanie, while learning the Slovak language and even after no more than a day in, I am thoroughly confused :/ With just starting to learn noun declension, or cases, I found some information that is, in my opinion, rather conflicting. Slovak masculine nouns are declined in 4 categories: animate not ending in -a, animate ending in -a, inanimate ending in a hard or neutral consonant, and inanimate ending in a soft consonant. For the nominative, or first case, example of the word "muž", meaning man, the plural form of the word for this case is "muži". However, another word that falls into this same category of animate nouns not ending in -a is "dedo", which means grandfather. Likewise, I wrongly thought that the plural for this word in the nominative case would logically be "dedi", which would follow the category's example set by the word "muž". Unlike the word muž, however, the plural form for the word dedo is "dedovia", which follows the example of masculine animate nouns that end in the letter -a. This is also true for the word "syn". Although it does not end in the letter -a, the plural nominative form for it is declined as if it does.
So my question is why is it that there is a difference between how the endings of words change within the same case and category? For example, why isn't dedovia "dedi" or why isn't synovia "syni"?
I realize that it isn't the most popular language, but maybe there is a native speaker here that understands what I'm trying to ask. Also, I probably worded my question fairly poorly, so if you have any more specific questions about this, be sure to ask.
Thanks in advance
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby Dragon27 » Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:03 am

I took a quick look at Slovak declension on wiki and saw this paragraph:
For each gender, there are four basic declension paradigms (that is declension models).

Note that many nouns (especially those following the paradigm chlap) have different endings than those of the paradigms in one or several grammatical cases. They are neither defined, nor listed in the following. The complete number of different paradigms for nouns is somewhere about 200.

I guess you'll have to memorise some exceptions ;). Except for plural Nominative, "dedo" and "syn" follow the "chlap" paradigm (i.e., animate and ends in anything except -a) pretty fine.
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby tarvos » Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:27 am

In Slavic languages, plenty of nouns have exceptional forms. The words you mentioned are irregular in some other languages as well. (Сын surely is!) What you should realize is that not everything is always 100% the way it is in the books - how do you think English learners feel when they see the plural of goose is geese and the plural of mouse is mice???
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby _effect » Thu Nov 23, 2017 8:10 pm

Thanks for letting me know. I guess I didn't really realize that there are exceptions in every language, just like English.
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby William Camden » Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:22 pm

It's synowie in Polish. I think syny also exists for "sons" but has a contemptuous shade of meaning.
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby Theodisce » Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:32 pm

William Camden wrote:I think syny also exists for "sons" but has a contemptuous shade of meaning.


That's true, but it has to be supplemented by another word ("psie syny" is not the most obvious example, but the one I permit myself not to invoke is extremely vulgar).
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby Dragon27 » Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:38 pm

Funny thing, even though the normal plural form for Russian "сын" is "сыновья", there's also a second way of declining this word, which I, sort of, heard somewhere in some contexts, but can't pinpoint where it would be appropriate:
https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D ... BD#Русский

the normal way (singular, plural)
Им. сы́н, сыновья́
Р. сы́на, сынове́й
Д. сы́ну, сыновья́м
В. сы́на, сынове́й
Тв. сы́ном, сыновья́ми
Пр. сы́не, сыновья́х

and the second way
Им. сы́н, сыны́
Р. сы́на, сыно́в
Д. сы́ну, сына́м
В. сы́на, сыно́в
Тв. сы́ном, сына́ми
Пр. сы́не, сына́х

"Сыны" gives off some kind of "high poetic" vibe. The name of TV series Sons of Anarchy is translated into Russian as "Сыны анархии".
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby Daniel N. » Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:59 am

In many Slavic languages, some (or many!) masc. nouns not in -a have -ov- or -ev- in some case forms. Such forms are historically called u-nouns. Typical examples are (BCMS) sin 'son', and dom 'home'.

They had -u- which in some forms turned into -ou- or -eu-, and then to -ov- or -ev-.

In BCMS, this -ov-/-ev- is known as "long plural" and it has spread to almost all short (one syllable) masculine nouns, but you still have to remember which short nouns get only -i in plural (e.g. zub 'tooth' - zubi).

In most other languages, it didn't spread, so you can regard these nouns are a special group, which has to be remembered.
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jan 01, 2018 2:16 pm

Tarvos is right. There are many words that are irregular or follow a less known rule, and that is true about many languages (English is a hell for learners due to this).

A piece of good and bad news: This is usually the most common about the most common words. Perhaps due to the frequency. The words get used so much they evolve faster than the rest (but this sentence is my speculation). So, it is not unlikely that you'll learn quite a lot of "weird" words now. But the more advanced ones will be easier.

If declinations are really hard for you, I recommend making an SRS deck with model words, some irregular ones, and those that you particularly struggle with. Sure, the SRS won't help with learning where to use each case, but they can help you get rid of the obstacle "oh, what was the genitive of this word" by automatisation of the forms.
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Re: Slovak Noun Declension

Postby Dragon27 » Mon Jan 01, 2018 2:33 pm

Cavesa wrote:This is usually the most common about the most common words. Perhaps due to the frequency. The words get used so much they evolve faster than the rest (but this sentence is my speculation).

Not exactly sure about that. There's probably a lot of examples and counterexamples to whichever rule of thumb one might think of, but I get the impression that the most frequently used words actually retain the old patterns, while everything else is "evolving". English pronouns are being used a lot, and they're basically the only entities (I think) in English that have some vestiges of the old case system. Old plurals are retained in many frequent (relatively) English words, while the rest of the words just need to have "s" slapped onto them. Probably, because it's harder to remember the proper (idiosyncratic) way of forming a plural for less frequent words, than just apply a general rule.
I must also add that the frequently used words tend to be phonetically simplified from usage (which could be interpreted as "evolving" of sorts).
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