The Masculine Nouns – Exceptions

In one of the previous blog posts I wrote about feminine exceptions, but the masculine gender also has many features. The basic rule is that the masculine nouns in Slovenian end in a consonant in singular. In dual they get the ending –a, and in plural the ending –i. However, there are also some masculine nouns that end in a vowel (this also applies to the Slovenian male names, such as Luka, Žiga, Mitja, Miha, Drago, Samo, Jaka, Jože, Marko, etc.). Some of these words are similar in other languages, too (see the second table below).

Masculine nouns which follow the basic rule

*the dual ending is always the same as the genitive ending in singular (only for the masculine gender)

Masculine nouns ending in a vowel

*kivi and taksi prolong their endings with –j in dual and plural

Prolonging the base with -ov

In Slovenian, there are also some monosyllabic masculine nouns which we prolong with –ov and add the regular endings for dual and plural.

Two endings in plural

Some masculine nouns have two options for plural; we can use a regular ending –i, or also –je. Both are correct!

Masculine nouns ending in -r

And finally, a special feature of some masculine nouns are those that end in –r (but not all of them!). These get the ending –ja in dual and –ji in plural (so we have to add the letter j before the regular endings).

As you can see, there are many features for the masculine gender as well. And I didn’t even mention all of them! So you don’t only have to worry about the feminine exceptions which can cause confusion to anyone who learns Slovenian. I’m sure that those learning Slovenian are already used to it! 🙂