Upper Sorbian Grammar

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Declension of feminine nouns

Upper Sorbian feminine nouns in the nominative singular end with -a or, much rarer, with a consonant. Those ones that end with -a may be both soft-stem (when the last consonant of the word's stem is bj, č, j, l, mj, nj, pj, rj, š, ć, wj or ž) and hard-stem (when the last consonant of their stem is b, c, d, h, ch, k, ł, m, n, p, r, s, t, w or z). Those which end with a consonant are hard-stem when they end with c, s or z; in all other cases they are soft-stem, even if its last consonant's softness may not be apparent in the nominative form (it becomes clear in cases formed with a diffrent than a zero ending). This group also includes some irregular nouns.

The following table shows the case endings of feminine nouns:

The symbol -0 stands for a zero ending (an ending that is not represented by any sound in speech nor by any letter in writing).

Consonant and vowel changes

The palatalising -’e ending

An apostrophe before an ending (-’e) signals that some consonants when preceeding this ending alternate as shown below:

Whenever any other consonant preceeds an ending marked with an apostrophe, the consonant turns into its soft counterpart:

This ending in feminine nouns is only used with hard-stem and velar-stem nouns.

The ó : o alternation

Some feminine nouns that in the nominative singular end with a consonant and have -ó- as their last vowel replace it with -o- in the other forms, ex.:

Additional comments on some endings

G sing., N plur., A plur.

The -y ending is proper for hard-stem nouns (both with Nom.sing. ending with -a and with a consonant) excluding those that have h, ch or k as the last consonant of their stem, which have here the -i ending.
The -e ending is used with all soft-stem feminine nouns.

D sing., L sing., N du., A du.

Soft-stem nouns have the -i ending. Those of the hard-stem nouns that have c, s or z as the last consonant of their stem have the -y ending. The other hard-stem nouns have the -'e ending.

A sing.

Those nouns which in the Nom.sing. end with -a have the -u ending, and those the Nom.sing. of which end with a consonant have the zero ending.

G plur.

All nouns may have the -ow ending and the soft-stem ones may also alternatively have the -i ending.

Ins.plur.

The -ami ending is proper for hard-stem nouns and the -emi for those of the soft-stem type.

Examples

A hard-stem noun ending with -a:
wróna crow

A velar-stem noun ending in -a:
muka flour

A hard-stem noun ending with c s or z:
pomoc help

A soft-stem noun ending with another consonant:
kosć bone