"

13

CREATED BY JUTOH – PLEASE REGISTER TO REMOVE THIS LINE

1.13 How and when Czech words change their forms

Category*

Nouns
Who, What

Adjectives
What like

Pronouns
who, what, those e.g. he, his, it, …

Numerals
how many, what order, times

Verbs
actions, states

Adverbs
how, when, where…

Prepositions
when, where, e.g. in, at, before

Case

Endings change based on function in sentence and prepositions.

Endings change following the nouns it modifies and/or the adjective’s function in the sentence.

Forms change depending on function, preposition or position in the sentence.

Endings change

Doesn’t change with case but determines what case nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numerals will take.

Never change their form but require nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numeral following them to change case.

Singular/ Plural

Different ending for different numbers.

Different ending for different numbers.

Different form for different numbers.

Different form for different numbers.

Changes ending in the past, present and future tenses.

Gender

Can belong to one of three genders (masculine*, feminine, neuter)

Changes ending based on the gender of the noun it follows.

Some change ending based on the gender of the noun it relates to.

1, 2 and all ordinal numerals change ending based on the noun they count.

Changes ending in the past tense only.

Palatalization

Certain ending in certain cases soften the final consonant.

Certain ending in certain cases soften the final consonant.

Certain ending in certain cases soften the final consonant.

Person

1st (I), 2nd (you), 3rd (he, she, it)

Tense

Past, present, future.

Voice

Active and passive.

Aspect

Some nouns formed from verbs reflect aspect.

Some adjectives formed from verbs reflect aspect.

Perfective and imperfective.

Conditional

If I could, I would.

Superlatives/ Comparatives

bigger, biggest

more slowly,
most slowly

* Outside this system lie Conjunctions (and, if, or), Interjections (ouch!) and Particles (thus) which never change their form or influence other words to change form. Note: Some pronouns function as conjunctions (who, which, whose – so called relative pronouns) and of course change their form with all the categories relevant to pronouns.

** Masculine nouns and adjectives can be either animate or inanimate thus in effect multiplying the number of genders to four.

 

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Czech Navigator: Czech Grammar and Usage for Learners Copyright © 2016 by Dominik Lukeš and Jitka Kauerová is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.