Irregular Declension
Duktė – daughter, and sesuo – sister, are the only two feminine words of the fifth declension, they have the suffix -er- in the other cases. One word, moteris – woman, female, is both of the fifth and the third declensions, because it has variant genitive singular, both variants of which (-s and -ies) are equally apt, and it has a gen. pl. -ų. Two more words, dieveris m (older) – brother-in-law, and obelis f – apple tree, are the same case as moteris. The word dieveris, -ies (-ers) m, having more close meaning to a proper one, possibly has the fifth-type-like masculine singular instrumental (dieveriu), which is taken from the first declension, while the words of the third declension have -imi (dantimi, vagimi), without a gender distinction. But -imi is normal as well for the masculine nouns of the fifth declension, for example – akmenimi / akmeniu.
A word šuo – dog, differs from the other -uo words in that, that its stem is mixed with the suffix -uo and it consequently does not have the suffix -en- in the other cases (š-uo, akm-uo; šu-n-į, akm-en-į), its singular instrumental normal ending is of the third type (šunimi; that can be understood as a part of a meaning: more like an indefinite gender) and its accentuation paradigm is fourth, the sole case for the -uo words.
Mėnuo – month, moon, is of the first declension -is type, the only fifth type form is one of the two equal variants of singular nominative: mėnuo (other is mėnesis); genitive is mėnesio etc.
The word žmogus – man, human, historically had the nominative singular žmuo (compare Latin homō). Today žmogus is declined in the fourth paradigm in singular (žmogus, žmogaus etc.) and in the third -ė paradigm in plural (žmonės, žmonių etc.).
The words pats m, pati f – one/my/him/her/itself (also noun meanings: husband and wife) have also peculiarities. The ending -i (f., sg. nom.) is present only in two words: pati and marti – daughter-in-law. Pats (< patis) is of the third adjectival declensional type, but the singular nominative is different (-s < -is), plural nominative is -ys and the singular genitive -ies, like in nouns of the third declension. Its sg. gen. is also often said pačio.
The words of the third declension (-is, -ies) have either -ių or -ų in the genitive plural. The dative singular, similarly to the fifth declensional type, differs depending on the gender (-iai f, -iui m), the instrumental singular, differently from the fifth type, is the same for the both genders. One noun of the third type, petys, peties, has the sg. nom. ending with a long i: -ys. Some of the words having the suffix -uonis (there are few of such words) have parallel forms in the other declensions: palikuonis, -ies (common gender) and palikuonis, -io m, palikuonė, -ės f. Such change can happen after the change of an accent place: if the word is accented on the ending -is, then the change of declension (-is, -ies > -is, -io) does not occur in speech, and if the accent moves from the ending to the stem in singular nominative, then the change of declension sometimes occurs. For most of -uonis words, declining in the first declension is considered to be a mistake.
Read more about this topic: Lithuanian Declension
Famous quotes containing the words irregular and/or declension:
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)