[Serbian] Genders and possessives


From what I learned today, the gender rules in Serbian seems quite regular. The rule is:

  1. masculine nouns usually end with a consonant,
  2. feminine nouns with a final -a,
  3. neuter nouns with final -o or -e.

It would be nice if the rule is very strict, but there are some exceptions. For instance the word for car auto ends with -o ending, but is considered a masculine and the word for table sto also is a masculine noun.

Possessive adjectives (Prisvojne zamenice)

So the following is a massive table on how possessives are described in Serbian…

Personal pronounMasc. Sg.Fem. Sg.Neu. Sn.Masc. Pl.Fem. Pl.
Jamojmojamojemojimoje
Titvojtvojatvojetvojitvoje
Onnjegovnjegovanjegovonjegovinjegove
Onanjennjenanjenonjeninjene
Minašnašanašenašinaše
Vivašvašavaševašivaše
Oninjihovnjihovanjihovonjihovinjihove

So if someone points at my car and asks Čiji je ovo? I may reply as Ovo je njegov auto I suppose. Here’s one interesting thing of Serbian though. The word for whose also changes according to the gender of the object of interest. For masculine nouns like sto, it would be čiji, but for neuter nouns like dete, a child, one would ask čije je ovo and for feminine nouns like kuća, a house, the word čiji should change to čija.




© 2021.05. by Kyunghoon Han

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