4. Morphology: the OCS nominal system

4.1. Nouns

4.1.1. Nominal inflectional categories

Like Common Slavic and Proto-Slavic, OCS had three nominal inflectional categories: case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative and a vocative form), number (singular, dual and plural) and gender (masculine, feminine and neuter).

Nouns have an inherent gender and are inflected for case and number. Adjectives, non-personal pronouns and certain numerals are inflected for case, number and gender. Personal pronouns are inflected for case.

This section presents a series of tables showing the nominal inflectional paradigms of OCS. They have been adapted from Vaillant (1964). Words in parentheses are from non-canonical Church Slavonic texts (cf. 1.4.1).

4.1.2. Masculine o- and jo-stems

The vowel palatalisations (3.4.2) caused the masculine o- and jo-stems to split in two different paradigms, shown in Table 14. Example words: gradŭ m ‘city’; člověkŭ m ‘man’; mǫžĭ m ‘man’; otĭcĭ m ‘father’.

As illustrated by člověkǔ, the voc.sg of masculine o-stems shows the effects of the First Palatalisation (3.4.1), and the loc.sg, nom.pl and loc.pl show the effects of the Second Palatalisation (3.4.4).

4.1.3. Masculine u-stems

A recessive inflection in OCS – and in the other Slavic languages – is the u-stem paradigm, which was conflated with the o-stem paradigm. A fwe nouns appear more often with u-stem endings: volŭ ‘ox’, domŭ ‘house’, polŭ ‘half’, vrŭxŭ ‘top’, rędŭ ‘succession; order’ and, to a lesser degree, činŭ ‘row; order’, medŭ ‘honey’, sanŭ ‘rank; office’, udŭ ‘limb; body part’, darŭ ‘present’ (Vaillant 1964: 91). Table 15 shows the ideal inflection of an u-stem; in practice, however, many of the forms were substituted by o-stem forms, e.g. gen.sg syna. Example word: synŭ m ‘son’.

4.1.4. Neuter o- and jo-stems

Neuter o- and jo--stems also had different inflections due to the vowel palatalisations (3.4.2). The paradigms are shown in Table 16. Example words: město n ‘place’; srŭdĭce n ‘heart’; znamenije n ‘sign’.

Neuter o-stems ending in a velar, e.g. mlěko n ‘milk’, show the effects of the Second Palatalisation (3.4.4) in the loc.sg (mlěcě), nom–acc.du and loc.pl.

4.1.5. Feminine (masculine) a- and ja-stems

OCS a- and ja-stems were prevailingly feminine, but a few nouns were masculine, e.g. sluga ‘servant’, junoša ‘boy’, sǫdii ‘judge’. Due to the Common Slavic vowel palatalisations (3.4.2) the inflection of ja-stems differed from that of the ah₂-stems. The paradigms are shown in Table 17. Examples words: žena f ‘woman; wife’; duša f ‘soul’; sǫdii m ‘judge’.

Stems ending in a velar, e.g. ruka f ‘hand’, show the effects of the Second Palatalisation (3.4.4) in the dat.sg (rucě), the loc.sg (rucě) and the nom–acc.du (rucě).

4.1.6. Feminine (masculine) ĭ-stems

In OCS, i-stem nouns were usually feminine, but a few masculines are found as well (see Vaillant 1964: 101–102). The inflection can be seen in Table 18. Examples words: kostĭ f ‘bone’; pǫtĭ m ‘road’.

The inflection of masculine consonant stems is shown in Table 19. Examples words: dĭnĭ m ‘day’; korenĭ m ‘root’; kamenĭ m ‘stone’; jelenĭ m ‘stag’; sęžĭnĭ m/f? ‘fathom’; stepenĭ m ‘degree; step’.

The inflection of neuter consonant stems can be seen in Table 20. Examples words: imę n ‘name’; nebo n ‘sky’; tělo n ‘body’.

Table 21 shows the inflection of feminine consonant stems. Examples words: mati f ‘mother’; dŭšti f ‘daughter’; crŭky f ‘church’; neplody f ‘infertile woman’.

4.2. Adjectives

OCS adjectives have two different forms, a shorter one denoting indefiniteness, and a long one denoting definiteness. In the masculine, neuter and feminine the short forms are inflected like masculine o-stems (4.1.2), neuter o-stems (4.1.4) and feminine a-stems (4.1.5) respectively. If the stem ends in a palatalised consonant, the adjective is inflected like the corresponding jo- and a-stems.

The long forms, by contrast, have a paradigm of their own, shown in Table 22.

4.3. Pronouns: gendered

Like the short adjectives (4.2), the inflection of gendered pronouns follows that of o-/jo-stem and a-/ja-stem nouns in the nominative and accusative; the remaining cases have an interfix ‑oj‑ / ě. Table 23 shows the inflection of the demonstrative pronoun tŭ.

4.4. Pronouns: personal and reflexive

The inflection of the first-person personal pronouns is to some extent syncretic, with the nominative form being markedly distinct from the other forms (sg azŭ vs. m‑; du vě vs. n‑; pl my vs. n‑). The inflection of the personal pronouns is shown in tbl:inflection-of-personal-pronouns-and-reflexive.