Tag: declension

The Preposition: Location and Destination

stasya | 09.02.2012 | 0

When telling the location of or destination to a particular object you may encounter some difficulties with what preposition to use or how to change the noun according to it.

In this article I will show you the most popular prepositions and their common usage.

Here are some main points of telling the location and destination:

  • depending on the preposition and the question put to the sentence there can be 4 different cases involved in: Genitive, Accusative, Instrumental, Locative;

  • Locative case is never involved in telling the destination, it can only point on the location of an object.

Find out more about location and destination →

The Noun: Fourth declension

stasya | 31.01.2011 | 0

The fourth declension includes neuter nouns with () endings, which after declension achieve ен-, -ат-, -ят- suffixes.

Similar to the third declension it does not have groups (still the first and second declensions have them).

Neuter nouns with -а(-я) endings that mostly mean little animals or names of undersized things get the -ат-,-ят- suffixes: курча (a chicken) — курчати, кошеня (a kitten) — кошеняти, ягня (a lamb) — ягняти, немовля (a newborn baby) — немовляти etc.

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The Noun: Third declension

stasya | 31.01.2011 | 0

The third declension includes feminine nouns with zero endings and the word “мати” (a mother).

It does not have groups like the first and second declensions and thus is easier to deal with. Many feminine nouns from this group mean something abstract, object's quality, condition, action or even some general concepts. These nouns often cannot have plural form.

Example: сміливість (courage), гордість (pride), любов (love), щастя (happiness), мудрість (a wisdom), радість (a joy) etc.

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The Noun: Second declension

stasya | 29.01.2011 | 0

The second declension includes masculine nouns with zero and endings and neuter nouns with -о,-е,-я endings.

These nouns are divides in three groups: hard, soft and mixed. In The Noun: Declensions article it was explained which nouns belong to each of these groups, so now it is time to learn how to change the nouns according to the cases and their groups.

Read more about second declension →

The Noun: First declension

stasya | 27.01.2011 | 0

The first declension includes feminine, masculine and combined nouns with -а(-я) ending.

These nouns are divided into three groups: hard, soft and mixed. In The Noun: Declensions article it was explained which nouns belong to each of these groups, so now it is time to learn how to change the nouns according to the cases and their groups.

Read more about first declension →

The Noun: Declensions

stasya | 26.01.2011 | 0

From the previous article you have found out more about cases and their main points, so the next question you would probably ask is:

How to change the nouns according to the cases?

Well, for this purpose there are four declensions. Declensions are actually groups of nouns gathered due to their specific endings and genders. The first and the second declension also are divided into three different groups: hard, soft and mixed.

It looks like this:

  1. I declension

    • hard group

    • soft group

    • mixed group

  2. II declension

    • hard group

    • soft group

    • mixed group

  3. III declension

  4. IV declension

Read more about declensions →

The Noun: Gender

stasya | 22.01.2011 | 0

The noun (іменник [i'mɛn:ɪk]) — is the main part of speech and it is the basis of Ukrainian grammar. Ukrainian nouns have three genders, they can be singular and plural and what is more important they have seven cases. Unlike English they do not have articles.

Depending on the noun's gender, number or case the other parts of speech (i.e. adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, numerals and verbs) will change.

For example:

Цей чоловік кладе книжку на стіл. — This man is putting (puts) a book on the table.

What we have here is the main noun “чоловік” (a predicate) which is masculine, singular and in nominal case (answers the question: “who?”). According to this we have to change the pronoun and the verb.

Let's talk about the genders

There are three of them:

  1. Masculine (чоловічий рід).

  2. Feminine (жіночий рід).

  3. Neuter (середній рід).

Read more about genders →