Serbian:Cases

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српски / srpski Serbian
Family	Sub-family	Language of	Script
Indo-European	South Slavic	Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro	Extended Latin, Cyrillic

In Serbian nouns are classified into four declensions in regard to their endings in the nominative and genitive case.

There are seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental and locative.

Common characteristics of the Serbian case forms

There are some features of the Serbian case system which are present in all four declensions and which have no exceptions:

dative and locative singular are always the same.
locative is always preceded by a preposition
the genitive plural ending is always a long vowel (in most cases a, sometimes i or u). The long vowel always lengthens the previous syllable.
dative, instrumental and locative plural always have the same form.

First declension (Prva deklinacija)

Words which belong to the first declensions words are:

masculine nouns ending in a consonant in nominative singular and in -a in genitive singular.
neuter nouns ending in -o or -e in nominative singular and in -a in genitive singular.

doktor, -a, m. = doctor
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	doktor	doktora	doktoru	doktora¹	doktore	doktorom²	doktoru
plural	doktori	doktora	doktorima	doktore	doktori	doktorima	doktorima

telefon, -a, m. = telephone
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	telefon	telefona	telefonu	telefon¹	telefone	telefonom²	telefonu
plural	telefoni	telefona	telefonima	telefone	telefoni	telefonima	telefonima

Note 1: Animate nouns have the accusative singular form same as in genitive singular, while in the case of the inanimate nouns it's the same as the nominative singular form.
Note 2: After palatal consonants (š, ž, č, ć, dž, đ, lj, nj & j) the ending -em is used: prijateljem, čekićem.

selo, -a, n. = village
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	selo	sela	selu	selo	selo	selom	selu
plural	sela	sela	selima	sela	sela	selima	selima

polje, -a, n. = field
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	polje	polja	polju	polje	polje	poljem	polju
plural	polja	polja	poljima	polja	polja	poljima	poljima

Nouns ending whose stems end in palatal consonants (š, ž, č, ć, dž, đ, lj, nj & j) take the -e- endings, while all the others take the -o- endings.

Second declension (Druga deklinacija)

Words which belong to this declension are neuter nouns which have an extra syllable in genitive singular, which contains either n or t.

ime, -ena, n. = name
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	ime	imena	imenu	ime	ime	imenom	imenu
plural	imena	imena	imenima	imena	imena	imenima	imenima

dugme, -eta, n. = button
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	dugme	dugmeta	dugmetu	dugme	dugme	dugmetom	dugmetu

The nouns which have a t in the ending mostly have a supletive plural.

Third declension (Treća deklinacija)

Words which belong to the second declension have the nominative singular ending in -a and the genitive singular in -e. Most of these nouns are feminine, but there is a number of masculine nouns which belong to this declension.

žena, -e, f. = woman
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	žena	žene	ženi	ženi	ženo¹	ženom	ženi
plural	žene	žena²	ženama	žene	žene	ženama	ženama

vojvoda, -e, m. = duke
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	vojvoda	vojvode	vojvodi	vojvodu	vojvodo¹	vojvodom	vojvodi
plural	vojvode	vojvoda²	vojvodama	vojvode	vojvode	vojvodama	vojvodama

Note 1: Some nouns have the ending -a in vocative singular. These include: proper names (excluding the 2-syllable proper names which have the long-rising accent - Néna:Nêno) and certain nouns for family relations (e.g. mama, tata, etc)
Note 2: Some nouns have the ending -i in genitive plural - e.g. lampa:lampi. Three nouns have the ending -u - ruka, noga and sluga.

Fourth declension (Četvrta deklinacija)

Words which belong to the fourth declension end in a consonant in nominative singular and in -i in genitive singular. These words are all of feminine gender.

stvar, -i, f. = thing
	Nominative	Genitive	Dative	Accusative	Vocative	Instrumental	Locative
singular	stvar	stvari	stvari	stvar	stvari	stvarju¹ / stvari	stvari
plural	stvari	stvari	stvarima	stvari	stvari	stvarima	stvarima

Note 1: Both forms of the instrumental case are used, but the -ju form is usually used if the instrumental is not preceded by a preposition. If the stem ends in t, d, s, ž, l, n, k/c, g, h, p, b, m or v, the -j- from the ending gets dropped and the final consonant of the stem turns into ć, đ, š, ž, lj, nj, č, ž, g, š, plj, blj, mlj and vlj respectively.

Serbian pages
Introduction · Cases · Pronouns · Numbers

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