Slovene Grammar - Grammatical Number

Grammatical Number

There are four types of inflexion related to the grammatical number in Slovene. The future tense shall be used to demonstrate its usage. The future tense is formed with the verb to be in the future tense plus the l-participle of the full lexical verb. For example, a table of the English expression "I will see" ("Jaz bom videl") when including gender for he ("on") and she ("ona") without it ("ono") can be written as:

can be translated into Slovene as:

Not only does Slovene have singular and plural, but it also has the rare dual grammatical number, or a separate form of every noun used when there are only two such items (except for natural pairs, such as trousers, eyes, for which plural is used). Dual grammatical number, when an ambiguity between dual and plural forms exists, can be rendered into other languages in various ways; comparatively often, there is no ambiguity and the dual is extraneous. (This explains the relatively early disappearance of the dual in most languages). Dual grammatical number was a feature of the Proto-Slavic language which has been retained by Slovene. An example of dual grammatical number would be "onadva sta" ("The two are") which refers to two objects or subjects in the masculine gender or "onidve sta" ("The two are") which refers to the same concept, but in the feminine gender. However "oni so" ("They are ") refers to more than two objects or subjects in the masculine gender while "one so" ("They are") does the same the feminine gender. Dual grammatical number is also preserved in gender. The dual is used consistently in Slovene but the younger generations tend to replace the dual with the plural.

Bil je lep jesenski dan. Odšla sva v park. Usedla sva se na klopco in se pogovarjala. Lepo nama je bilo.

It was a nice autumn day. We (the two of us) went to the park. We (the two of us still) sat down on a bench and talked. We had a nice time.

Bil je lep jesenski dan. Odšli smo v park. Usedli smo se na klopco in se pogovarjali. Lepo nam je bilo.

It was a nice autumn day. We went to the park. We sat down on a bench and talked. We had a nice time.

The first phrase sounds much more romantic and intimate to a Slovene, a style that is impossible to translate into English with its lack of dual grammatical number.