Nouns
Eastern Armenian nouns have seven cases, one more than Western Armenian. They are: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), genitive (possession), dative (indirect object), ablative (origin), instrumental (means) and locative (position). Of the seven cases, the nominative and accusative, with exceptions, are the same, and the genitive and dative are the same, meaning that nouns have mostly five distinct forms for case. Nouns in Armenian also decline for number (singular and plural), but do not decline for gender (i.e. masculine or feminine).
Declension in Armenian is based on how the genitive is formed. There are several declensions, but two are the most used (genitive in i, and genitive in u):
| Ablative | դաշտից /dɑʃˈtit͡sʰ/ |
դաշտերից /dɑʃtɛˈɾit͡sʰ/ |
/ɡɑˈɾut͡sʰ/ | /ɡɑɾinɛˈɾit͡sʰ/ |
| Instrumental | դաշտով /dɑʃˈtɔv/ |
դաշտերով /dɑʃtɛˈɾɔv/ |
/ɡɑˈɾɔv/ | /ɡɑɾinɛˈɾɔv/ |
| Locative | դաշտում /dɑʃˈtum/ |
դաշտերում /dɑʃtɛˈɾum/ |
/ɡɑˈɾum/ | /ɡɑɾinɛˈɾum/ |
Two notes:
First, notice that the Ablative form in Eastern Armenian is /-it͡s/, where it is -ê in Western Armenian:
Abl.sg WA karê/EA /ɡɑɾut͡sʰ/
Second, notice that in Western Armenian, the plural forms followed the u-declension, while in Eastern Armenian the plural forms follow the i-declension:
Gen.pl WA karineru/EA /ɡɑɾinɛˈɾi/
Read more about this topic: Eastern Armenian, Morphology
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