Genitive Singular Endings

Level 2

Many masculine and neuter nouns have genitive singular -a. Feminine -a nouns commonly use -e, while many consonant-final feminine nouns use -i.

How It Works

Useful pairs are grad/grada, selo/sela, kuća/kuće and noć/noći. These represent different declensions, not a single ending chosen for every noun.

Stem changes can accompany the ending: pas/psa and vrijeme/vremena need more than simply appending a letter. A dictionary’s genitive form is therefore valuable information about the noun.

The same spelling may have another role elsewhere: feminine kuće can be genitive singular or nominative plural. Ask what governs the noun in the actual sentence rather than identifying it from the final vowel alone.

Examples (4)

  1. Dolazim iz grada.

    I am coming from the city.

    Iz takes genitive grada.

  2. Vrata kuće su otvorena.

    The house’s door is open.

    Kuće identifies the house connected with the door.

  3. Nemam vremena.

    I do not have time.

    Vrijeme has genitive vremena in this quantity expression.

  4. Bojim se noći.

    I am afraid of the night.

    The verb construction takes genitive noći.

How It Connects

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Genitive Singular EndingsLevel 2

Learn This First

Genitive endings fill one of the roles introduced by the seven-case overview.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.

And 12 more in the full list.

Words in This Pattern

-a