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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 36 Dave/Locave and Instrumental Plural 208 / 600
36 Dative/Locative and Instrumental Plural
We know now how to form the nominative plural of nouns, and how to form the
accusative in plural, but we still don’t know how to make the dative/locative plural
(DL-pl) or the plural of the case we introduced in the previous chapter, the
instrumental case.
Both cases are quite simple to form, and they are always equal in plural. Nouns get
the following endings:
noun type (N)
nouns in -a (≈ fem.)
neuter nouns (≈ in -o, -e)
masc. nouns not in -a
fem. not in -a (e.g. noć)
DLI-pl
-a → -ama
-o, -e → -ima
N-pl + ma
N-pl + ma
As you can see, all nouns end in either -ama or -ima in DLI-pl. There are no
additional sound changes in this case: if you know how to make N-pl, you know how
to make these two cases as well!
For example:
Putujemo rođacima DL . We’re traveling to our relatives.
putovati
Ptice N sjede na granama DL . Birds are sitting on branches.
Stojim pred vratima I . I’m standing in front the door.
stajati
(Recall that the noun vrata door exists in plural only.) In the following example you’ll
see how DL = I in plural:
Pišem poruku A prijateljima DL . I’m writing a message to my friends.
pisati
U kinu DL sam s prijateljima I . I’m in the movie theater with my friends. ®
Of course, we must be able to put adjectives into DLI-pl as well. It’s simpler than you
probably would expect:
gender adj. DLI-pl example
fem.
velikim ribama
big fishes
neut. -im
velikim jezerima
big lakes
masc.
velikim stolovima
big tables
What about pronouns? We have already seen DL case of personal pronouns, both in
singular and in plural, and instrumental case in singular. The instrumental case in