Croatian grammar reference / Nouns #008

Masculine plural nouns: infix or not?

Introduction

The plural forms of some masculine nouns have an “infix” (inserted syllables -ov or -ev) before their characteristic ending – in all cases: nominative; genitive; dative; accusative; ……..

For example:

nominative singular golub becomes, in nominative plural, golubovi.
nominative singular tečaj becomes, in nominative plural, tečajevi.

(infix is -ov after 'hard' consonants, and -ev after 'palatals')

Displaying the declensions for all cases of these two verbs ......

Plural forms in all cases have infix -ov

Plural forms in all cases have infix -ev

Many other nouns do not form this extension by insertion of an infix: the case-defining ending joins directly to the stem of the noun.

For example:

nominative singular prijatelj becomes, in nominative plural, prijatelji.
nominative singular prozor becomes, in nominative plural, prozori.

Plural forms do not have an infix

Which ones do, and which ones do not?

Below is my best attempt at a summary, but it only refers to the 'what', because I have no idea about the 'why'!

Multi-syllabic masculine nouns

For example: sporazum; kišobran; nogometaš; kompjuter; muškarac; ......

None of these (as far as I know) have an infix in their plural forms. Below are the declensions of two such nouns- just like the 'standard' noun declension we learned on day one of learning Croatian - (as in the first declension table in the page #004a A universal declension table?

Multi-syllabic masculine noun: no infix in plural cases

Two-syllable masculine nouns that do not have fleeting -a

Most of these do not have an infix in their plural forms. Some examples: student; papir; predmet; izlaz; frizer; ostatak; prozor; poklon; potok; mladić; .....

Declension patterns are like these:

Most bisyllabic nouns without fleeting -a do not have infix -ov or -ev

But (wouldn't you know!) a few do – such as tečaj, slučaj, golub, galeb, pramen, ....

A few bisyllabic nouns without fleeting -a do have infix -ov or -ev

Two-syllable masculine nouns with fleeting -a

Some of these nouns do have an infix in the plural: vjetar; trošak; toranj; buban; tigar; ...

Some bisyllabic nouns with fleeting -a do have an infix in plural cases

and some don't – such as: tjedan; metar; starac; predak; ... Their pattern of declension is like the following:

Some bisyllabic nouns with fleeting -a do not have an infix in plural

Monosyllabic masculine nouns that do not have fleeting -a

All such nouns do (I think) have in an infix in plural cases, as we are told in our early days of learning Croatian. There are many examples, such as: stol; kralj; pod; krov; grob; znak; rat; ples; .......

Monosyllabic masculine nouns without fleeting -a have an infix in plural cases

Monosyllabic masculine nouns that have fleeting -a

I only know two: One of them pas (dog) does not have an infix in plural cases, while the other, san (dream) does!

Monsyllabic pas with fleeting -a does not have an infix

Monsyllabic san with fleeting -a does have an infix

So ....

After all that, what we can say about whether masculine nouns have an infix -ov or -ev in their plural forms is that we can't say anything!

Do let me know if I have committed sins of commission or omission.