Page:A grammar of the Bohemian or Cech language.djvu/30

8 ﻿This declension corresponds to the Russian masc. in ь, as конь, a horse. To it also belong verbal nouns ending in e, as vůdce, the leader: zrádce, the traitor. In the gen. sing, the termination is in -a only when an animate thing is signified; in thecase of inanimate things it is -u, which is encroaching upon the other form (see Fourth Declension). We find, however, -a for the genitive in many names of places, in the names of the months, and those of the days of the week which end in -ek; as ledna, from leden, January; pondělka, from pondělek, Monday. We get, however, pátku from pátek, Friday, and there are many other substantives which cannot be brought under any rule, as večer, the evening; hřbitov, a churchyard; rybnik, a fishpond; chléb, bread. Some substantives take both, e.g. dvůr, the court; duch, spirit; hrib, a mushroom; and sometimes the meaning is thereby differentiated—ze sna, from sleep, and snu, of a dream; ducha, the spirit; duchu, breath. In the sing. voc. the common form is in e, as člověk, člověče, a man; bůh, bože, the God. Besides u the locative often ends in -e; u is used after the prepositions v and na, as v hradu. We are reminded of such forms as the Russian въ году, in the year.

The nom. plural ends in -é in some substantives, such as měšťan, a citizen, měšťané; those ending in -tel, as přítel, a friend; irregular plural, přátelé.

Plural nominatives in -a have a collective meaning, as lesa, word for lesy.

In the instrumental we sometimes get the old Slavonic form in -mi, as koňmi, horses (cf. Russian instances). The noun bratr, brother, has a collective form in the plural, nom. and gen. bratří, dat. bratřím, inst. bratry, for bratřími, loc. bratřích.