Bulgarian nouns


Bulgarian nouns have the categories: grammatical gender, number, case and definiteness. A noun has one of three specific grammatical genders and two numbers, with cardinal numbers and some adverbs, masculine nouns use a separate count form. Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun.

Noun formation

Nouns can be formed from other words by means of suffixes. Some important suffixes that are used to form nouns are:
  • -ар for male people ;
  • -ач for male people ;
  • -тел for male people ;
  • -ин for male people ;
  • -ик for male people ;
  • -ец for male people ;
  • -ица for:
  • * female people ;
  • * female animals ;
  • * feminine diminutives ;
  • * feminine objects ;
  • * products for eating and drinking ;
  • -ка for:
  • * female people ;
  • * feminine diminutives ;
  • -ник for:
  • * objects ;
  • * places with certain purpose ;
  • -иня for female people ;
  • -алня for places with certain purpose ;
  • -ище for:
  • * places where something is done ;
  • * augmentatives ;
  • -ница for places where something is done ;
  • -ство for:
  • * places where a department is located ;
  • * the names of certain activities ;
  • * the names of certain qualities ;
  • * collective nouns ;
  • -а for the names of some actions ;
  • -ба for the names of some actions ;
  • -ние for the names of some action ;
  • -ина for the names of abstract qualities ;
  • -еж for the names of some actions ;
  • -итба for the names of some actions ;
  • -не for the names of some actions ;
  • -ост for the names of abstract qualities ;
  • -ие for abstract nouns ;
  • -е for masculine diminutives ;
  • -ота for the names of abstract qualities ;
  • -ле for masculine diminutives ;
  • -че for masculine diminutives ;
  • -ичка for feminine diminutives ;
  • -це for neuter diminutives ;

Gender

In Bulgarian nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender is an inherent characteristic of every noun. This means that each noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. Only nouns referring to people or animals can change their gender. In most cases the gender of the noun can be determined according to its ending, but there aren't any strict rules. Masculines are all the nouns which refer to male people or animals, and many more.
Masculine nouns that end in -а/-я or -о/-е/-и, however, still take respectively feminine or neuter forms of the definite article.
Nouns referring to people or animals can change their gender by
adding the suffixes: -ка, -ица, -а, -иня:
The gender of nouns that have no singular form can't be determined: финанси, очила, обуща.
Some nouns have changed gender with time, for example the feminine vecher, or var. Some words, in spoken Bulgarian at least, can take either gender, e.g. domat/domata or sandal/sandala ; some can take either gender with slight variations in meaning, e.g. gaz or prah ; while others, usually for etymological reasons, can have completely different meanings – e.g. med means "honey" in the masculine, and "copper" in the feminine, or prust, meaning finger, or soil.

Number

A noun has singular and plural number. Unlike in English, where almost all nouns add -s in the plural, in Bulgarian there are many endings and despite the rules listed below one cannot be absolutely sure which ending to use with which noun. Besides, when forming the plural some nouns alter additionally. That is why a noun should always be learnt together with its plural form. Generally if the noun ends in a vowel, it is removed before adding the plural suffix. Sometimes the stress changes position.

Count form

Masculine nouns which end in a consonant have an additional, specialized plural. This form is called the count form or numerical form, and is used only after cardinal numbers and the adverbs колко, толкова, няколко : пет / колко / толкова / няколко молива versus тези моливи. An exception to this occurs in some exclamations following колко, when the ordinary plural is used and the inferred meaning is "what a large amount of!": e.g. колко коня?, but колко коне!.
The count form is created with the endings -а and -я, and—unlike the usual plural—without any additional changes, except for the moving of stress, and metathesis of ъ in the letter group ръ.
There are also a handful of neuter nouns for parts of the body which also take a count form – ramo → ramene / 2 ramena; kolyano → kolene / 2 kolena.
* Some nouns have different count forms according to their meaning. When "литър" and "метър" mean measures of volume and length, their count form is "литра" and "метра" respectively. But when "метър" means "meter" its count form is "метъра". The case is the same with "път": път – пътя and път – пъти. The nouns "литър" and "метър" are the only ones that lose the "ъ" in their count forms.
** The usual plural form of the noun "ден" is "дни" and its count form is "дена". "Дни" can be used instead of "дена", but not vice versa. The combinations of words два дни and два дена are both correct, but the sentence Зимните дена са студени is incorrect. The usual form must be used, not the count one – Зимните дни са студени.
The count form is avoided with nouns denoting persons and in such cases the usual plural form is much more preferred.
The usual form is also used after masculine numbers, ending in -ма – двама ученици, петима ученици.

Irregular and variant forms

Some nouns have irregular plural forms:
  • човек/čovek — хора/hora — души/duši
  • дете/dete — деца/deca
Some neuter nouns have two or more plural forms. For example: кълбо — кълба and кълбета, крило — крила and криле, рамо — рамена and рамене, коляно — колена and колене, море — морета and моря, дърво — дървета, дърва and дървеса, четене — четения and четенета. Some plural forms have different meanings: дърва – fuel wood, дървета – trees; some are used in specific contexts: the variants моря, поля are found only in poetry.
In Bulgarian, there are some nouns that are only found in the singular, and they are uncountable. This category includes some abstract nouns ; some collective nouns ; and chemical elements and some other substances. There are also words which have only plural forms. These are nouns referring to objects composed of two identical parts, and some concepts and objects consisting of many elements.

Definiteness

In Bulgarian, nouns have the grammatical category of definiteness. The morphological indicator of definiteness is the presence of a special morpheme, called the definite article. The definite article is placed after the noun and is written together with it. The use of the definite article in Bulgarian is called членуване.
*Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –ът/–ят, when they are grammatical subjects, and –а/–я, when they are grammatical objects. This rule is observed only in writing. In speech, there is no distinction between the full and the short article, and the short form is normally used in all cases.
There is an additional discrepancy between pronunciation and spelling when the stress of some monosyllabic masculine nouns falls on the definite articles -а or -ят/'я'.

Case

In Bulgarian masculine and feminine nouns have two cases Nominative and Vocative. The vocative is used when addressing a person or a thing, in all other cases the nominative is used. Theoretically, all masculine and feminine nouns can be declined in the vocative but vocative forms are used mainly with personal names and with nouns denoting people.
*Most common nouns ending in -ка can be found both with the ending о and е. One of the forms is considered colloquial, but there aren't any strict rules which one. For example: the form другарко is found more often than другарке, but директорко sounds very odd. Generally, the form with о is ruder.
Feminine nouns which end in a consonant do not have vocative forms.

Usage of vocative

There is a difference in usage between vocative forms of common nouns and proper nouns. The former are used always, when addressing someone, and the use of nominative forms instead is immediately perceived as a gross error:
The latter, however, are considered informal, and are used less frequently, especially the
vocative forms of female personal names ending in -о, which are even considered by some to be rude or rustic. Nevertheless, nominative forms sound too formal, even snobbish, and are used rarely by native speakers. Instead, diminutives or short forms are preferred. Diminutives are used usually by elder people, when addressing younger ones.
Male vocative forms and female ones ending in е are used regularly and their substitution with nominative forms is also considered a gross error.
There is difference between the vocative form of both male and female short name forms and their other, non-vocative form. The latter takes the definite article -та or -то, depending on the ending: