Latvian declension
Encyclopedia
Latvian declension describes the declension
of noun
s, adjective
s, pronoun
s and numeral
s in the Latvian language
. There is a system of seven cases
(nominative
, genitive
, dative
, accusative
, instrumental
, locative
and vocative
) in Latvian.
s, masculine and feminine.
Latvian nouns can be classified as either declinable or indeclinable
. Most Latvian nouns are declinable, and regular nouns belong to one of six declension classes (three for masculine nouns, and three for feminine nouns).
Latvian nouns have seven grammatical cases: nominative
, genitive
, dative
, accusative
, instrumental
, locative
and vocative
. The instrumental case is always identical to the accusative in the singular, and to the dative in the plural. It is used as a free-standing case (i.e., in the absence of a preposition) only in highly restricted contexts in modern Latvian. (See below for a true prepositional case, the ablative
.)
The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following table:
The 2nd declension exhibits palatalization
of the final stem consonant in the genitive singular and throughout the plural (p → pj in the example above, but see below for full details). Exceptions to this include compound nouns and proper names ending in -dis or -tis (e.g. Atis, gen. sing. Ata).
A small subclass of 2nd declension nouns have identical nominative and genitive singular (most of them ending in -ens). These are part of the so-called consonant stem nouns: e.g. akmens "stone", asmens "blade", mēness "moon", rudens "autumn", sāls "salt", ūdens "water" and zibens "lightning". The 2nd declension noun suns "dog" has the regular genitive singular suņa.
The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following
The final stem consonant is palatalized in the genitive plural of 5th and 6th declension nouns (in the examples above, p → pj and t → š, but see the next section for full details). Exceptions to this include loanwords such as epizode (gen. pl. epizodu) in the 5th declension and a handful of words in the 6th declension: acs "eye", auss "ear", balss "voice", zoss "goose".
The 4th and 5th declensions include a number of masculine nouns (e.g. puika "boy", or proper names such as Dilba, Zvaigzne), or common gender nouns that are either masculine or feminine depending on their use in context (e.g. paziṇa "acquaintance", bende "executioner") . In these cases, the masculine nouns take the same endings as given in the table above, except in the dative singular:
The 6th declension noun ḷaudis "people" is masculine. It has no singular forms, only regular plural forms.
the preceding stem consonant. This is true of the 2nd declension genitive singular (ending -ja), all forms of the 2nd declension plural, and the genitive plural of the 5th and 6th declensions (ending -ju).
Palatalized labial consonant
s are simply indicated by an orthographic j:
Other consonants and clusters of consonants undergo more complex changes:
The palatalization of r is no longer indicated in modern Latvian orthography. For example, the gen. plur. of cepure "hat" is cepuru (but may be pronounced cepuŗu). It is, however, still used among people of Latvian origin and books outside of Latvia.
s or foreign names that end in a vowel
. Some example are: taksi "taxi", ateljē "studio", Deli "Delhi".
. Latvian lacks definite and indefinite article
s, but the form of the adjective chosen can determine the correct interpretation of the noun phrase
. For example, consider the following examples:
In both sentences, the adjective is feminine singular accusative, to agree with the noun māju "house". But the first sentence contains the indefinite form of the adjective, while the second one contains the definite form.
Adjectives containing the suffix -ēj- have reduced case endings in the dative and locative. For example, vidējs, -a "central" (indefinite) has the following definite paradigm:
*After a preposition
governing the dative (e.g. līdz "to, until"), the dative forms manim, tevim, and sevim are possible. These forms may replace genitive and accusative pronouns with other prepositions, too.
s tas "that" and šis "this".
The interrogative
/relative pronoun
kas "who, what" has the same declension, but it has only singular forms (and no locative form, with the adverb kur "where" used instead). The same applies to forms derived from kas: nekas "nothing", kaut kas "something", etc.
The intensive pronoun
pats/pati (cf. "I myself", "they themselves") is irregular:
Other pronouns and determiners exhibit regular (indefinite) adjectival declension:
s and ordinal
s.
The numbers from 1 to 9 are declinable. The number 1 (viens/viena) combines with a singular noun, 2 (divi/divas) through 9 (deviņi/deviņas) with plural nouns. With the exception of trīs "3", these numbers take the same endings as indefinite adjectives.
The following cardinal numbers are indeclinable:
Ordinal numbers ("first", "second", etc.) are declined like definite adjectives. In compound numbers, only the final element is ordinal, e.g. trīsdesmit otrajā minūtē "in the 32nd minute".
in the Latvian instrumental form. In the singular, the instrumental is identical to the accusative. In the plural, the instrumental is identical to the dative.
Some linguists also distinguish an ablative case that is identical to the genitive in the singular and the dative in the plural.
The ablative is generally not presented as a separate grammatical case in traditional Latvian grammars, because it appears exclusively with prepositions. One can say instead that prepositions requiring the genitive in the singular require the dative in the plural. Also it is important to note that the Latvian ablative case is not an archaism but rather an innovation.
The ablative case emerged in Latvian under the circumstances of shifting the government of almost all prepositions in the plural to the dative form. This shift was caused by the loss of the old accusative form in the singular, which became identical to the instrumental form: A.-I. vīru, kāju, māsu. In the plural, most feminine nouns had identical forms for the dative and the instrumental case. The masculine form ending in "-īs" was dropped and the dative ending was introduced there by analogy: I. vīrīs >> vīriem (<< D. vīriem). Therefore, the instrumental case merged with the dative in the plural and the accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns had in the meantime levelled their G.Sg.~N.Pl.~Acc.Pl. endings: GSg,NPl,AccPl kājas; AccSg,ISg,GPl kāju. Therefore, prepositional constructions became ambiguous: uz pļavas - "on the meadow" or "to the meadows"; uz pļavu - "on the meadows" or "to the meadow". To at least partly reduce this, the dative case was introduced after most prepositions in the plural: uz pļavas (on the meadow), uz pļavu (to the meadow), uz pļavām (on/to the meadows). Therefore, almost all the prepositions that governed the genitive started taking the dative-instrumental case in the plural, giving a new birth to the ablative case.
The instrumental case, on the other hand, cannot be eliminated so easily, because it can be used in some contexts without any preposition:
. Nowadays perhaps in some dialects the dual might be used only in some words representing body parts, e.g. divi roki, kāji, auši, akši, nāši 'two hands, legs, ears, eyes, nostrils', in such phrases like: skatīties ar abāmu akšāmu 'to look with both eyes', klausīties ar abāmu aušāmu 'to listen with both ears', ņemt ar abāmu rokāmu 'to take with both hands', lekt ar abāmu kājāmu 'to jump with both legs'.
The old Dual endings of all cases:
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
of noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s and numeral
Number names
In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers...
s in the Latvian language
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
. There is a system of seven cases
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
(nominative
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
, genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
, accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
, instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
, locative
Locative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
and vocative
Vocative case
The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
) in Latvian.
Nouns
Latvian has two grammatical genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s, masculine and feminine.
Latvian nouns can be classified as either declinable or indeclinable
Uninflected word
In the context of linguistic morphology, an uninflected word is a word that has no morphological markers such as affixes, ablaut, consonant gradation, etc., indicating declension or conjugation...
. Most Latvian nouns are declinable, and regular nouns belong to one of six declension classes (three for masculine nouns, and three for feminine nouns).
Latvian nouns have seven grammatical cases: nominative
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
, genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
, accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
, instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
, locative
Locative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
and vocative
Vocative case
The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
. The instrumental case is always identical to the accusative in the singular, and to the dative in the plural. It is used as a free-standing case (i.e., in the absence of a preposition) only in highly restricted contexts in modern Latvian. (See below for a true prepositional case, the ablative
Ablative case
In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...
.)
Masculine declensions
The three masculine declensions have the following identifying characteristics:- 1st declension: nom. sing. in -s or -š, thematic vowel -a- (e.g. vīrs "man, husband")
- 2nd declension: nom. sing. in -is (or -ns/-ss, see below), thematic vowel -i- (e.g. skapis "shelf")
- 3rd declension: nom. sing. in -us, thematic vowel -u- (e.g. tirgus "market, bazaar")
The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following table:
| 1st decl. | 2nd decl. | 3rd decl. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sing. | Plur. | Sing. | Plur. | Sing. | Plur. | |
| Nom. | vīrs | vīri | skapis | skapji | tirgus | tirgi |
| Gen. | vīra | vīru | skapja | skapju | tirgus | tirgu |
| Dat. | vīram | vīriem | skapim | skapjiem | tirgum | tirgiem |
| Acc. | vīru | vīrus | skapi | skapjus | tirgu | tirgus |
| Ins. | vīru | vīriem | skapi | skapjiem | tirgu | tirgiem |
| Loc. | vīrā | vīros | skapī | skapjos | tirgū | tirgos |
| Voc. | vīr | vīri | skapi | skapji | tirgu | tirgi |
The 2nd declension exhibits palatalization
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
of the final stem consonant in the genitive singular and throughout the plural (p → pj in the example above, but see below for full details). Exceptions to this include compound nouns and proper names ending in -dis or -tis (e.g. Atis, gen. sing. Ata).
A small subclass of 2nd declension nouns have identical nominative and genitive singular (most of them ending in -ens). These are part of the so-called consonant stem nouns: e.g. akmens "stone", asmens "blade", mēness "moon", rudens "autumn", sāls "salt", ūdens "water" and zibens "lightning". The 2nd declension noun suns "dog" has the regular genitive singular suņa.
Feminine declensions
The three feminine declensions can be characterized as follows:- 4th decelension: nom. sing. in -a, thematic vowel -a- (e.g. sieva "woman, wife")
- 5th declension: nom. sing. in -e, thematic vowel -e- (e.g. upe "river")
- 6th declension: nom. sing. in -s, thematic vowel -i- (e.g. nakts "night")
The full paradigms of endings for the three declensions is given in the following
| 4th decl. | 5th decl. | 6th decl. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sing. | Plur. | Sing. | Plur. | Sing. | Plur. | |
| Nom. | sieva | sievas | upe | upes | nakts | naktis |
| Gen. | sievas | sievu | upes | upju | nakts | nakšu |
| Dat. | sievai | sievām | upei | upēm | naktij | naktīm |
| Acc. | sievu | sievas | upi | upes | nakti | naktis |
| Ins. | sievu | sievām | upi | upēm | nakti | naktīm |
| Loc. | sievā | sievās | upē | upēs | naktī | naktīs |
| Voc. | siev | sievas | upe | upes | nakts | naktis |
The final stem consonant is palatalized in the genitive plural of 5th and 6th declension nouns (in the examples above, p → pj and t → š, but see the next section for full details). Exceptions to this include loanwords such as epizode (gen. pl. epizodu) in the 5th declension and a handful of words in the 6th declension: acs "eye", auss "ear", balss "voice", zoss "goose".
The 4th and 5th declensions include a number of masculine nouns (e.g. puika "boy", or proper names such as Dilba, Zvaigzne), or common gender nouns that are either masculine or feminine depending on their use in context (e.g. paziṇa "acquaintance", bende "executioner") . In these cases, the masculine nouns take the same endings as given in the table above, except in the dative singular:
- 4th decl.: -am (e.g. dat. sing. puikam "boy")
- 5th decl.: -em (e.g. dat. sing. bendem "male executioner", cf. bendei "female executioner")
The 6th declension noun ḷaudis "people" is masculine. It has no singular forms, only regular plural forms.
Palatalization
Some of the case endings given in the declension tables above begin with an underlying /j/, which has the effect of palatalizingPalatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
the preceding stem consonant. This is true of the 2nd declension genitive singular (ending -ja), all forms of the 2nd declension plural, and the genitive plural of the 5th and 6th declensions (ending -ju).
Palatalized labial consonant
Labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
s are simply indicated by an orthographic j:
| change | nom. sing. (unpalatalized) | gen. plur. (palatalized) | translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| p → pj | upe | upju | "river" |
| b → bj | gulbis | gulbju | "swan" |
| m → mj | zeme | zemju | "land" |
| v → vj | dzērve | dzērvju | "crane" |
Other consonants and clusters of consonants undergo more complex changes:
| change | nom. sing. (unpalatalized) | gen. plur. (palatalized) | translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| c → č | lācis | lāču | "bear" |
| d → ž | briedis | briežu | "deer" |
| l → ļ | brālis | brāļu | "brother" |
| n → ņ | dvīnis | dvīņu | "twin" |
| s → š | lasis | lašu | "salmon" |
| t → š | nakts | nakšu | "night" |
| z → ž | vāze | vāžu | "vase" |
| sn → šņ | krāsns | krāšņu | "stove" |
| zn → žņ | zvaigzne | zvaigžņu | "star" |
| sl → šļ | kāpslis | kāpšļu | "stirrup" |
| zl → žļ | zizlis | zižļu | "baton" |
| ln → ļņ | vilnis | viļņu | "wave" |
| ll → ļļ | lelle | leļļu | "doll" |
| nn → ņņ | pinne | piņņu | "acne" |
| st → š | rīkste | rīkšu | "rod" |
The palatalization of r is no longer indicated in modern Latvian orthography. For example, the gen. plur. of cepure "hat" is cepuru (but may be pronounced cepuŗu). It is, however, still used among people of Latvian origin and books outside of Latvia.
Indeclinable nouns
Some nouns do not belong to any of the declension classes presented above, and show no case or number inflection. For the most part, these indeclinable nouns are unassimilated loanwordLoanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s or foreign names that end in a vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
. Some example are: taksi "taxi", ateljē "studio", Deli "Delhi".
Adjectives
Adjectives in Latvian agree in case, number, and gender with the noun they modify. In addition, they express the category of definitenessDefiniteness
In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
. Latvian lacks definite and indefinite article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
s, but the form of the adjective chosen can determine the correct interpretation of the noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
. For example, consider the following examples:
- Viņa nopirka [vecu māju]. "She bought [an old house]."
- Viņa nopirka [veco māju]. "She bought [the old house]."
In both sentences, the adjective is feminine singular accusative, to agree with the noun māju "house". But the first sentence contains the indefinite form of the adjective, while the second one contains the definite form.
Indefinite declension
Masculine indefinite adjectives are declined like nouns of the first declension, and feminine indefinite adjectives are declined like nouns of the fourth declension.| masculine | feminine | ||||
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| nominative | -s | -i | -a | -as | |
| genitive | -a | -u | -as | -u | |
| dative | -am | -iem | -ai | -ām | |
| accusative | -u | -us | -u | -as | |
| locative | -ā | -os | -ā | -ās |
Definite declension
In the history of Latvian, definite noun phrases were constructed with forms of an old pronoun *jis; traces of this form can still be seen in parts of the definite adjectival paradigm. Note that only definite adjectives are used in the vocative case. The nominative form can always be used as a vocative. If, however, the modified noun appears as a vocative form distinct from its nominative form (this can only happen with singular nouns, as can be seen from the declension tables above), then the vocative form of the adjective can optionally be identical to its accusative form in -o.| masculine | feminine | ||||
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| nominative | -ais | -ie | -ā | -ās | |
| genitive | -ā | -o | -ās | -o | |
| dative | -ajam | -ajiem | -ajai | -ajām | |
| accusative | -o | -os | -o | -ās | |
| locative | -ajā | -ajos | -ajā | -ajās | |
| vocative | -ais / -o | -ie | -ā / -o | -ās |
Examples
The declension of the adjective zils/zila "blue" is given below.
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Adjectives containing the suffix -ēj- have reduced case endings in the dative and locative. For example, vidējs, -a "central" (indefinite) has the following definite paradigm:
| masculine | feminine | ||||
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| nominative | vidējais | vidējie | vidējā | vidējās | |
| genitive | vidējā | vidējo | vidējās | vidējo | |
| dative | vidējam | vidējiem | vidējai | vidējām | |
| accusative | vidējo | vidējos | vidējo | vidējās | |
| locative | vidējā | vidējos | vidējā | vidējās | |
| vocative | (= nominative) | ||||
Personal pronouns
The third person personal pronouns in Latvian have a regular nominal declension, and they have distinct masculine and feminine forms. The first and second person pronouns, and the reflexive pronoun, show no gender distinction, and have irregular declensions.| singular | plural | reflexive | |||||||
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd masc. | 3rd fem. | 1st | 2nd | 3rd masc. | 3rd fem. | ||
| I | you (fam.) | he/it | she/it | we | you (pol./plur.) | they | -self/-selves | ||
| nominative | es | tu | viņš | viņa | mēs | jūs | viņi | viņas | – |
| genitive | mans | tavs | viņa | viņas | mūsu | jūsu | viņu | viņu | sevis |
| dative | man* | tev* | viņam | viņai | mums | jums | viņiem | viņām | sev* |
| accusative | mani | tevi | viņu | viņu | mūs | jūs | viņus | viņas | sevi |
| locative | manī | tevī | viņā | viņā | mūsos | jūsos | viņos | viņās | sevī |
*After a preposition
Latvian prepositions
This article describes the use of prepositions and postpositions in Latvian grammar.The lists below are organized according to the case of the noun phrase following the preposition. In the plural, however, all prepositions in Latvian can be described as governing the dative case...
governing the dative (e.g. līdz "to, until"), the dative forms manim, tevim, and sevim are possible. These forms may replace genitive and accusative pronouns with other prepositions, too.
Other pronouns
The following tables show the declension of the demonstrativeDemonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s tas "that" and šis "this".
| masculine | feminine | ||||
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| nominative | tas | tie | tā | tās | |
| genitive | tā | to | tās | to | |
| dative | tam | tiem | tai | tām | |
| accusative | to | tos | to | tās | |
| locative | tajā / tai / tanī | tais / tajos / tanīs | tai / tajā / tanī | tais / tajās / tanīs |
| masculine | feminine | ||||
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| nominative | šis | šie | šī | šīs | |
| genitive | šī, šā | šo | šīs, šās | šo | |
| dative | šim | šiem | šai | šām | |
| accusative | šo | šos | šo | šās | |
| locative | šai / šajā / šinī | šais / šajos / šinīs | šai / šajā / šinī | šais / šajās / šinīs |
The interrogative
Interrogative word
In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...
/relative pronoun
Relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
kas "who, what" has the same declension, but it has only singular forms (and no locative form, with the adverb kur "where" used instead). The same applies to forms derived from kas: nekas "nothing", kaut kas "something", etc.
The intensive pronoun
Intensive pronoun
- In English :An intensive pronoun is a pronoun used to add emphasis to a statement; for example, "I did it myself." While English intensive pronouns use the same form as reflexive pronouns, an intensive pronoun is different from a reflexive, because the pronoun can be removed without altering the...
pats/pati (cf. "I myself", "they themselves") is irregular:
| masculine | feminine | ||||
| singular | plural | singular | plural | ||
| nominative | pats | paši | pati | pašas | |
| genitive | paša | pašu | pašas | pašu | |
| dative | pašam | pašiem | pašai | pašām | |
| accusative | pašu | pašus | pašu | pašas | |
| locative | pašā | pašos | pašā | pašās |
Other pronouns and determiners exhibit regular (indefinite) adjectival declension:
- the demonstrative forms tāds/tāda "such (as that)" and šāds/šāda "such (as this)"
- the 1st and 2nd person singular possessivePossessive pronounA possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...
forms mans/mana "my", tavs/tava "your (fam.)" (and the reflexive savs/sava) - the interrogativesInterrogative wordIn linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...
kurš/kura "which", kāds/kāda "what (kind)", and indefinite pronounIndefinite pronounAn indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places.-List of English indefinite pronouns:Note that many of these words can function as other parts of speech too, depending on context...
s derived from them, e.g. nekāds "no", kaut kāds, nezin kāds "some kind of" - other indefinite pronouns such as dažs/daža "some, certain", cits/cita "other", viss/visa "all", (ik)katrs/(ik)katra "every", ikviens/ikviena "each"
Numerals
In Latvian there are two types of numerals: cardinalCardinal number
In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number – the number of elements in the set. The transfinite cardinal numbers describe the sizes of infinite...
s and ordinal
Ordinal number
In set theory, an ordinal number, or just ordinal, is the order type of a well-ordered set. They are usually identified with hereditarily transitive sets. Ordinals are an extension of the natural numbers different from integers and from cardinals...
s.
The numbers from 1 to 9 are declinable. The number 1 (viens/viena) combines with a singular noun, 2 (divi/divas) through 9 (deviņi/deviņas) with plural nouns. With the exception of trīs "3", these numbers take the same endings as indefinite adjectives.
| masculine | feminine | |
| nominative | trīs | |
| genitive | triju | |
| dative | trim, trijiem | trim, trijām |
| accusative | trīs | |
| locative | trijos, trīs | trijās, trīs |
The following cardinal numbers are indeclinable:
- the numerals 11–19: vienpadsmit, divpadsmit, trīspadsmit, četrpadsmit, piecpadsmit, sešpadsmit, septiņpadsmit, astoņpadsmit, deviņpadsmit
- desmit (10) and its compounds: divdesmit, trīsdesmit, četrdesmit, piecdesmit, sešdesmit, septiņdesmit, astoņdesmit, deviņdesmit
- simt (100) and its compounds: simt, divsimt, trīssimt, četrsimt, piecsimt, sešsimt, septiņsimt, astoņsimt, deviņsimt
- tūkstoš (1000) and its compounds: tūkstoš, divtūkstoš, trīstūkstoš, četrtūkstoš, piectūkstoš, seštūkstoš, septiņtūkstoš, astoņtūkstoš, deviņtūkstoš, etc.
Ordinal numbers ("first", "second", etc.) are declined like definite adjectives. In compound numbers, only the final element is ordinal, e.g. trīsdesmit otrajā minūtē "in the 32nd minute".
Instrumental case
The following table illustrates case syncretismSyncretism (linguistics)
In linguistics, syncretism is the identity of form of distinct morphological forms of a word. This phenomenon is typical of fusional languages....
in the Latvian instrumental form. In the singular, the instrumental is identical to the accusative. In the plural, the instrumental is identical to the dative.
Some linguists also distinguish an ablative case that is identical to the genitive in the singular and the dative in the plural.
| 1st decl. | 2nd decl. | 3rd decl. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | |
| genitive | vīra | vīru | skapja | skapju | tirgus | tirgu |
| ablative | vīra | vīriem | skapja | skapjiem | tirgus | tirgiem |
| dative | vīram | vīriem | skapim | skapjiem | tirgum | tirgiem |
| instrumental | vīru | vīriem | skapi | skapjiem | tirgu | tirgiem |
| accusative | vīru | vīrus | skapi | skapjus | tirgu | tirgus |
The ablative is generally not presented as a separate grammatical case in traditional Latvian grammars, because it appears exclusively with prepositions. One can say instead that prepositions requiring the genitive in the singular require the dative in the plural. Also it is important to note that the Latvian ablative case is not an archaism but rather an innovation.
The ablative case emerged in Latvian under the circumstances of shifting the government of almost all prepositions in the plural to the dative form. This shift was caused by the loss of the old accusative form in the singular, which became identical to the instrumental form: A.-I. vīru, kāju, māsu. In the plural, most feminine nouns had identical forms for the dative and the instrumental case. The masculine form ending in "-īs" was dropped and the dative ending was introduced there by analogy: I. vīrīs >> vīriem (<< D. vīriem). Therefore, the instrumental case merged with the dative in the plural and the accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns had in the meantime levelled their G.Sg.~N.Pl.~Acc.Pl. endings: GSg,NPl,AccPl kājas; AccSg,ISg,GPl kāju. Therefore, prepositional constructions became ambiguous: uz pļavas - "on the meadow" or "to the meadows"; uz pļavu - "on the meadows" or "to the meadow". To at least partly reduce this, the dative case was introduced after most prepositions in the plural: uz pļavas (on the meadow), uz pļavu (to the meadow), uz pļavām (on/to the meadows). Therefore, almost all the prepositions that governed the genitive started taking the dative-instrumental case in the plural, giving a new birth to the ablative case.
The instrumental case, on the other hand, cannot be eliminated so easily, because it can be used in some contexts without any preposition:
- vīrs sarkanu bārdu "a man with a red beard" (singular: instrumental = accusative)
- meitene zilām acīm "a girl with blue eyes" (plural: instrumental = dative)
Dual number
Old Latvian had also a Dual numberDual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
. Nowadays perhaps in some dialects the dual might be used only in some words representing body parts, e.g. divi roki, kāji, auši, akši, nāši 'two hands, legs, ears, eyes, nostrils', in such phrases like: skatīties ar abāmu akšāmu 'to look with both eyes', klausīties ar abāmu aušāmu 'to listen with both ears', ņemt ar abāmu rokāmu 'to take with both hands', lekt ar abāmu kājāmu 'to jump with both legs'.
The old Dual endings of all cases:
| Masculine | Feminine | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.decl. | 2.decl. | 3.decl. | 4.decl. | 5.decl. | 6.decl. | 7.decl. | |
| Nom.Acc.Voc. | -u | -ju | -u | -i | -ji | -ji | -u |
| Abl.Dat.Ins. | -amu | -jamu | -umu | -āmu | -ēmu | -īmu | -ūmu |
| Gen.Loc. | -i | -ji | -u | -i | -ji | -ji | -u |