Language/Bosnian/Grammar/Nouns

Bosnian Grammar - Nouns

Hi Bosnian learners! 😊
In this lesson, we will learn about Bosnian noun grammar. Nouns are an essential part of any sentence, and their gender, number, and case all play important roles in constructing sentences that convey meanings accurately. With this in mind, understanding the Bosnian noun grammar is a vital step in mastering Bosnian language.

Consider exploring these related pages after completing this lesson: Questions, Future Tense, Plurals & Questions and Negations.

What are nouns?

In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a person, place, or thing. In Bosnian, nouns have gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter), number (singular or plural), and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and locative). These grammatical properties can change depending on the sentence's structure, and all words involved must agree accordingly for the sentence to be grammatically correct.

Gender

Bosnian nouns belong to one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Determining a noun's gender is relatively straightforward in the case of masculine and feminine nouns, since the noun's ending provides the necessary clue. However, for neuter nouns, it is not that easy. You have to check the noun's form and its meaning to know its proper gender. For example, "sunce" (sun) is of neuter gender in Bosnian, regardless of most other Slavic languages where it is masculine.

The following table shows the different noun endings for the three Bosnian noun genders in nominative case for the singular form.

Gender	Noun Endings
Masculine	-a, -o, -e, -i, -u, -r, etc.
Feminine	-a, -e, etc.
Neuter	depending on the word

Number

Just like in English, Bosnian nouns can be singular or plural. The plural form of Bosnian nouns can be formed in different ways, but the most common is by adding the ending "-ovi" or "-evi" in the nominative case.

The following table shows some examples of singular and plural Bosnian nouns:

Noun	Singular	Plural
vrata	vrata	vrata (same form as singular)
auto	auto	auti
grad	grad	gradovi

Case

Case is perhaps the most complicated aspect of Bosnian noun grammar. Bosnian has six different cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and locative, and these cases dictate the function and structure of nouns in sentences.

In Bosnian, nouns take different endings depending on which case they are in, and knowing the correct case of a noun in a sentence is essential to ensure accuracy in communication. The table below shows how the Bosnian language uses the various cases:

Type	Case Endings	Example Translation
Subject	-a	The car is red.
Genitive	-e	The mother gives the cake to the child.
Dative	-i	I'm sharing the lollipops with my children.
Accusative	-u/-a	She loves to read.
Instrumental	-om/-em	I'm writing with a pen.
Locative	-u/-e	The book is on the table.

Plural case endings

Singular and plural nouns have different endings in Bosnian. For example, in the nominitive case, the endings for the plural form depending on the ending of the word.

Below is a table that shows plural case endings in Bosnian:

Type	Ending a	Ending e or a
Nominative	-i, -e, etc.	-i, -e, etc.	-e
Genitive	-a	-a	-a
Dative	-ama	-ima	-ama
Accusative	-e/-i	-a	-e/-i
Instrumental	-ama/-ima/-om etc.	-ima	-ama etc.
Locative	-ama/-ima/-u etc.	-u/-ima	-i/etc.

Dialogue

Person 1: Kupila sam (I bought) Person 2: Šta si kupila? (What did you buy?) Person 1: Kupila sam novu knjigu. (I bought a new book.) Person 2: Kako se zove knjiga? (What's the name of the book?) Person 1: Knjiga se zove "Kći". (The book's name is "Daughter".)

Conclusion

As you can see, Bosnian noun grammar is quite complex and can be quite daunting to learn, especially with the many grammatical rules and exceptions to keep in mind. However, practice and persistence are the keys to mastering Bosnian language. So, keep practicing and using Bosnian in your everyday life to become more comfortable with it. Don't forget to check out other native speakers and ask them any questions. You can also use the Polyglot Club website to find more information about Bosnian grammar, vocabulary, and more.

👍 Good luck, and happy learning!

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➡ If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below.
➡ Feel free to edit this wiki page if you think it can be improved. 😎

Sources

• Bosnian Language - Structure, Writing & Alphabet - MustGo
• Bosnian Nouns

Impressive work on finishing this lesson! Explore these additional pages to enhance your understanding: Personal pronouns, Introduction to Bosnian Grammar: Verbs and Conjugation, Comparatives and Superlatives & Pronouns.

Other Lessons

• How to Use Be
• Plurals
• Pronouns
• Adjectives
• Give your Opinion
• Conditional Mood
• Personal pronouns
• Future Tense
• Negation
• Questions