Appendix:Romanian nouns
Romanian nouns come in three genders, two numbers and (technically) 5 cases.
- Genders
- Masculine
- Feminine
- Neuter
- Numbers
- Singular
- Plural
- Cases
- Nominative/Accusatve
- Genitive/Dative
- Vocative
Gender
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
Neuter nouns are slightly peculiar in that there is no set of words (articles, adjectives, etc.) designated to their use. Instead, they use masculine words in the singular and feminine words in the plural.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| m | un bărbat frumos a beautiful man |
doi bărbați frumoși two beautiful men |
| n | un lucru frumos a beautiful thing |
două lucruri frumoase two beautiful things |
| f | o femeie frumoasă a beautiful woman |
două femei frumoase two beautiful women |
Number
Plurals in Romanian end in -i, -uri or -e. See individual genders' declension appendices for more details.
Article
Although a separate part of speech, the article must be mentioned in any description of nouns due to the fact that the definite article is not, itself, a separate word in Romanian.
Indefinite
| indefinite article forms | singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| m, n | f | ||
| nom/acc | un | o | niște |
| gen/dat | unui | unei | unor |
The indefinite article has 6 forms total: 3 nominative/accusative forms and 3 genitive dative forms. Each case has 2 singular forms (one for masculine/neuter and one for feminine) and one form for all plurals.
Definite
The definite article in Romanian is enclitic, meaning that it is attached to the end of the word.
| definite clitics | singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| m / n | f | m | f / n | |
| nom/acc | -l (or -le) | -a | -i | -le |
| gen/dat | -lui | -ei (or -ii) | -lor | -lor |
Case
Nominative/Accusative
Nominative
The nominative case corresponds to the subject of the sentence in English.
Accusative
The accusative case corresponds partly to English's objective case. It marks the direct object of a verb, rather than the indirect object (which is handled by the dative case).
Genitive/Dative
A peculiarity in this case is that feminine singular nouns take their plural forms.
| masculine | feminine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nom/acc | gen/dat | nom/acc | gen/dat | ||
| singular | indefinite | un bărbat | unui bărbat | o femeie | unei femei |
| definite | bărbatul | bărbatului | femeia | femeii | |
| plural | indefinite | niște bărbați | unor bărbați | niște femei | unor femei |
| definite | bărbații | bărbaților | femeile | femeilor | |
Genitive
The genitive case indicates possession.
- cartea băiatului ― the boy's book
- numele fratelui meu ― my brother's name
- numele surorii mele ― my sister's name
- numele surorilor mele ― my sisters' names
Dative
The dative case corresponds partly to English's objective case. It marks the indirect object of a verb, rather than the direct object (which is handled by the accusative case.)
Vocative
The vocative does not correspond to a particular case in English. It is used when addressing someone. It is not incredibly common and can be replaced by the nominative form in most cases.