Saturday, 8 November 2014

Grammar: The Vocative Case

The vocative case is used when addressing someone by their first name, family name, title or whatever.

Masculine nouns have many different endings in the vocative case.

Masculine words ending in -as

Addressing someone by their first name or family name:
-as becomes -ai
(Petras becomes Petrai)
(Paulauskas becomes Paulauskai)

If you use a common noun:
-as becomes -e
(studentas becomes studente)
(docentas becomes docente)

If the word ends in -tojas or ėjas:
-as becomes -au
(mokytojas becomes mokytojau)
(pardavejas becomes pardavejau)

Often a diminutive form is used, if the word ends in -ukas:
-ukas becomes -uk
(berniukas becomes berniuk)
(Jonukas becomes Jonuk)

Masculine words with other endings:
-is becomes -i
(brolis becomes broli)
(Algis becomes Algi or Algiuk)

-ys becomes -y
(mokinys becomes mokiny)
(Stasys becomes Stasy or Stasiuk)

-us becomes -au
(profesorius becomes profesoriau)
(Saulius becomes Sauliau or Saliuk)

Feminine nouns:

-a has no change
(The stress may change, if the stress is on the ending in the nominative, it moves to the beginning in the vocative)

-ė becomes -e
(Eglė becomes Egle)

Friday, 7 November 2014

Grammar: The Locative Case

The locative case is most commonly used to indicate the 'place where' or 'location'.

It is never used with a preposition, and is always used on it's own.

The locative case always ends with -e, but there are many different endings depending on the noun.


If the noun ends in -ė, add -je (aikštė becomes aikštėje)
If the noun ends in -a, change the -a- into -o- and add -je (šiema becomes šiemoje)
If the noun ends in -as, replace it with -e (miestas becomes mieste)
If the noun ends in -us or -ys, remove the -s and add -je (kambarys becomes kambaryje)
If the noun ends in -is, replace it with -yje (viešbutis becomes viešbutje)

Londonas/Londone (London/in London)
aikštė/aikštėje (square/in the square)
šeima/šeimoje (family/in the family)
Vilnius/Vilniuje (Vilnius/in Vilnius)
kambarys/kambaryje (room/in the room)
viešbutis/viešbutje (hotel, in the hotel)

In spoken Lithuanian, the -e of the locative is often dropped when it follows -j-.

The locative case does not include any sense of motion; in other words, it never means 'into' or 'to'.