Lithuanian has a declension system which is similar to declension systems in ancient Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit, Latin and Ancient Greek. Although scholars have traditionally enumerated up to ten case forms in Lithuanian, at least one case is used only by adverbs and some fixed expressions; another is extinct in the modern language. Lithuanian officially has seven cases, and the illative case (also used in Finnish, Latvian, Estonian, Hungarian, Sámi and Vepsian) can be replaced with the locative case. The cases are: nominative (), used to identify inflection type genitive (), used to identify inflection type dative () accusative () instrumental () locative (inessive ), with three subcases: illative () allative (), used by adverbs and in some fixed expressions adessive () vocative ()
Lithuanian has two main grammatical numbers: singular and plural. A dual number is also used in certain dialects, such as Samogitian. Some words in standard Lithuanian retain their dual forms, such as ("two") and ("both"), an indefinite number, and super-plural words (). Dual forms of pronouns used in standard Lituanian are optional. Although the dual number can be grammatically applied to any word, in practice its use is declining. Singular and plural are used similarly to many European languages. Singular, plural and dual inflections of the same case always differ among themselves; no rule dictates how to form the plural inflection from the singular of the same case.
Nouns Lithuanian nouns have five declensions, which are defined by the inflection in singular nominative and genitive cases. Only a few borrowed words, such as taksi̇̀ (taxi), tabù (taboo) and kupė̃ (train compartment or coupe), are not subject to declension. Declension Inflection in singular cases Examples Notes Nominative Genitive Nominative Genitive Meaning I , , ,
man; husband tree train guest Main pattern for masculine nouns II , , ,
wife light crow beginning sun Main pattern for feminine nouns; few masculine exceptions III
woman castle sheep tooth Rarer; feminine nouns, fewer masculine exceptions IV
human son honey number; digit Rare; masculine nouns V , ,
water stone digit sister daughter Very rare; masculine nouns, four feminine; suffixed by m and f
+ Noun and adjective declension suffixes Case First declension Second declension Third declension Fourth declension Fifth declension Adjectives Masculine Feminine Feminine Masculine Masculine Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Singular Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative
Each Lithuanian consonant (except ) has two forms: palatalized and non-palatalized (-, -, -). The consonants preceding vowels and are moderately palatalized.
The letter represents the sound similar to short i in the English "lit" or is a palatalization marker, softening the preceding consonant ( = like e, = ü, = ö; all samples where i is a softening marker are (), (, ), ). But is a diphthong, and there are no and combinations. Other diphthongs are , , , (used only in foreign words).
Feminine nouns ending in and masculine nouns ending in have the palatal forms and . The nominative singular ending is a palatal variant of . Two consonants ( and ) become and , respectively, when they precede the palatalization marker .
First declension
+ -as, -is, -ys (masculine) Case (child) (brother) (horse) Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative
Note that the ending for the vocative singular applies only to common nouns; proper nouns take the ending for example, (John, nominative) and (John! [vocative]).
Second declension
+ -a, -ė, -ti (feminine) Case (mother) (cat) (wife) Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative (or )
Only two nouns end in : and . Their declension is the same as the second adjective feminine declension. The noun has the same form as the pronoun 'herself; myself (feminine); itself (for feminine nouns)'.
Third declension
+ -is (masculine and feminine) Case (thief, masculine) (eye, feminine) Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative
The only difference in masculine and feminine nouns of this declension is between the dative singular forms.
Fourth declension
+ -us, -ius (masculine) Case (son) (professor) Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative
The palatalized variant of this declension has the forms of the first declension.
Fifth declension
+ -uo (masculine) Case (water) (sister) (daughter) Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Vocative
There are also two feminine fifth-declension nouns: (sister) and (daughter).
Adjectives Adjectives have three declensions, determined by the singular and plural nominative-case inflections. Adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender, and case. Unlike nouns (which have two genders, masculine and feminine), adjectives have three (except , adjectives); the neuter adjectives (the third example in the table) have only one uninflected form. Declension Singular nominative Plural nominative Examples Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine I , , – cold , , – wet, soppy II , , – pretty, beautiful , , – pleasant III , – copper , – wild; , – big , – right , – left.
Most of the first-type adjectives of the third declension are with the suffix . These are easily made from nouns by adding the suffix . From verbs, they are mostly made from a past passive participle: 'to boil', 'boiled', 'made by boiling'. The suffix is for such adjectives. These variants of verbal derivation easily become nouns; in this case, it is a noun 'dumpling (with a non-meat ingredient)'; dumplings with meat are ). Some other word types have certain suffixes or prefixes in this declensional group: 'of yesteryear', ( 'in yesteryear'; 'somewhat deaf'; (, 'woollen', , , 'tiny tot'.
Two adjectives of the third declension have long : 'right', 'left'. Plural nominative is , ; plural dative is , . A short form of , is , (similar to , ). , , have neutral gender with the pattern: , , . Pronominal forms are , , , . has mingled forms; nominative is sometimes ; genitive masculine or ; accusative (or ); plural masculine nominative . Other forms follow the regular pattern. Adjectives, except the type and the adjective , can have pronominal (definite) forms. Some other forms have variations: , , 'pedestrian, afoot'; , and , (adjective and noun meanings).
+ Adjective declension endings Case Masculine Feminine I II III I II III -ǎ- -u- -i- -ā- -i- -ē- Singular Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Masculine adjectives of the third declension have two types, differing in plural nominative and dative. 'copper, brazen' and 'wild' have the plural nominatives , and plural datives , . An example of the second type is 'big': in plural nominative and in plural dative.
+ Definite forms Case Masculine Feminine I II III I II III -ǎ- -u- -i- -ā- -i- -ē- Singular Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative
The definite form of an adjective is formed by merging adjectives with third-person personal pronouns: 'small' + (is) 'he' = , + 'she' = . An example is 'the little prince'; the title of the novella is (The Little Prince). The indefinite form is 'a little prince'.
Several forms have a pronoun added and an indefinite-adjective ending syllable; the longer sound is retained: feminine singular nominative , masculine singular instrumental and plural accusative, respectively , (the respective forms of a pronoun are , ) and one with , feminine singular instrumental: , -; or has a sound not doubled: masculine singular dative and locative, masculine plural dative, feminine plural dative and instrumental; an example is , , .
+Examples Case (good) (beautiful) (middle) Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Locative
Pronouns The personal pronouns (I), (you) (he, it), (she, it) and the reflexive pronoun are declined as follows: Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Instrumental Locative Singular 1st person 2nd person 3rd person Masculine Feminine Reflexive – Dual 1st person Masculine Feminine 2nd person Masculine Feminine 3rd person Masculine or Feminine Plural 1st person 2nd person 3rd person Masculine Feminine
The table contains only the objective genitive of the pronouns , , ; the possessive genitives of these words are , and , respectively. Compare 'he waits for me' and 'my friend' ("friend" is masculine); in 'he waits for us' and 'our friend', the two genitives coincide as usual.
Irregular declension 'daughter' and 'sister' are the only two feminine fifth-declension words; they have the suffix in the other cases. One word, 'woman, female', is of the fifth and third declensions because it has a variant genitive singular. Both variants ( and ) are equally apt, and it has a genitive plural . Two more words, m '(older) brother-in-law' and f 'apple tree', are the same case as . The suffix is normal for masculine fifth-declension nouns, such as /.
The word 'dog' differs from the other -uo words; its stem is mixed with the suffix , and it does not have the suffix in the other cases (, ; , ), its normal singular instrumental ending, is of the third type (. 'month, moon' is of the first declension type. The only fifth-type form is one of the two variants of singular nominative: mėnuo (the other is ). The word 'man (human)' historically had the nominative singular . Today is declined in the fourth paradigm in singular (, ), and in the third paradigm in plural (, ).
The words m, f 'one/my/him/her/itself' (also a noun 'husband and wife') are irregular. The ending (feminine singular nominative) is present in only two words: and 'daughter-in-law'. (< ) is of the third adjectival declensional type, but the singular nominative is different ( < ).
The third-declension words (, ) have or in genitive plural. The dative singular, similar to the fifth declensional type, differs by gender ( f, m). The instrumental singular, different from the fifth type, is the same for both genders. One third-type noun, , , has a singular nominative ending with a long i: . Some words with the suffix have parallel forms in the other declensions: , (common gender) and , m, , f.
Shifts in declension Some shifts are common; in singular genitive () is often pronounced , and the two forms are equal. Some words have parallel forms from other declensions with a slight change in meaning: , ; , ; , , , . The forms and are more informal than , and , .
First- and third-declension forms sometimes occur in speech for masculine fifth-declension words. Similarly, masculine third-declension words are sometimes declined in the first declension because the nominative singular is the same. The word , can have the third-declension singular nominative and genitive forms , . is the only (instead of ) form declined in the third declension.
For the word /, the proper form is singular genitive . The genitive of pats is (frequently ). Some nouns occur in another declensional type in only one case. may be pronounced in dialects, but the genitive remains . The dialectal and older form (a type of ), for example, can remain in the original paradigm with singular genitive sesers or shift to the declension: , .
Tables