Grammar of the Slovene language
The following is an overview of the grammar of the Slovene language.
Common phonological changes.
As in most other Slavic languages, changes to consonants and vowels often occur between related forms of words. Most of these can be traced back to changes that occurred in the ancestral Proto-Slavic language. Over time, many of the original changes have been reversed or levelled out.
Consonant alternations.
The following table gives an overview of the above changes:
These changes are very similar to those found in the related Serbo-Croatian language, but Serbo-Croatian "ć" and "đ" correspond to Slovene "č" and "j".
Hard and soft stems.
Word stems that end in c, č, š, ž or j are called "soft" stems, while the remainder are "hard". When endings begin with -o-, this vowel usually becomes -e- after a soft stem; this is called "preglas" in Slovene. This happens in many noun and adjective declensions, and also in some verbs. For example, the instrumental singular form of "korak" "step" is "korakom", while for "stric" "uncle" it is "stricem".
There are also some instances where the vowel stays as "o", such as the accusative singular of feminine nouns. These instances can be traced back to an earlier nasal vowel "ǫ" in Proto-Slavic, which did not undergo this change.
Fill vowel.
When certain hard-to-pronounce consonant clusters occur word-finally, an additional fill vowel is inserted before the last consonant(s) of the word to break up the cluster. This typically happens where there is no ending, like in the nominative singular, or the genitive dual and plural. The fill vowel is usually a schwa (, spelled "e"). For example, the noun "igra" "game" has the genitive plural form "iger", not "igr".
If the last consonant is "j", then "i" is used as the fill vowel instead. For example, "ladja" "boat" has the genitive plural "ladij". However, if the stem ends in "lj", "nj" or "rj", then the fill vowel is the normal "e" and is inserted before "both" consonants. The noun "ogenj" "fire", for example, loses the fill vowel in the genitive singular form "ognja".
There are a few cases where the fill vowel is instead a stressed "a". These are irregular and must simply be memorized. An example is "ovca" "sheep", which is "ovac" in the genitive plural, not "ovec".
Noun.
Nouns are marked for case and number. There are 6 cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental) and 3 numbers (singular, dual, and plural). Slovenian nouns are divided into 3 genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Each gender has different declension patterns, for a total of 10 declension forms.
Adjective.
The adjective expresses three main ideas: quality (qualitative adjectives, "kakovostni pridevniki"), relation (relational adjectives, "vrstni pridevniki") and possession (possessive adjectives, "svojilni pridevniki").
Adjectives in Slovenian can serve in three syntactic functions: premodifier ("levi prilastek"), subject complement ("povedkovo določilo"), and predicate modifier ("povedkov prilastek").
 – Želim modno "pričesko". (I would like a fashionable "haircut".)
 – Pričeska "je" modna. (The haircut "is" fashionable.)
 – Pričeska "je bila narejena" lepa. (The haircut "has been made" beautiful.)
The majority of adjectives are of the first kind. These express any qualities and properties of personal and impersonal nouns. Such adjectives are gradable either in the two- or three-step comparison, depending if they are relative to another, opposite adjective (three-step) or not (two-step or three-step). ("lep – grd" (beautiful – ugly) vs "bolan" (ill)).
Relational adjectives express type, class or numerical sequence of a noun. For instance: "kemijska in fizikalna sprememba" (chemical and physical change), "fotografski aparat" (photographic device (=camera)).
Possessive pronouns define possession, ownership or belonging. For example: "barvin sijaj" (the colour's shine), "Karmenina torbica" (Karmen's handbag), "delavska halja" (workers' overall).
Some adjectives expressing "properties" next to masculine nouns imply definiteness ('relation') or indefiniteness ('quality') of nouns.
For an exactly defined noun or a specific type thereof:
For nouns not exactly defined, being mentioned for the first time or generic:
Adjectives ending in "-i" and all possessive pronouns do not have special indefinite forms. There are two special adjectives which have special definite and indefinite forms for all genders and all cases, namely "majhen" (small) and "velik" (big) (the definite forms are "mali" and "veliki" respectively):
The adjective matches the subject or the predicate article to which it is ascribed. If it describes two singular nouns or one dual noun, the adjective should be in the dual. If it describes a plural or one singular and one non-singular noun, the adjective should be in the plural. Although gender should match the group, sometimes the gender of the adjacent noun is used with the appropriate grammatical number. For declension patterns of adjectives, see the section on nouns (the fourth declension is always adjectival). Some adjectives, however, are never declined, for example "bež" (beige), "poceni" (cheap), "roza" (pink), "super" (super), "seksi" (sexy), and some other loanwords.
Possessive adjectives for masculine and neuter possessed nouns add "-ov" (or "-ev" if the possessive noun ends in "c", "č", "ž", "š" and "j" ("preglas")) to the possessive noun. Feminine possessed nouns always take "-in". Possessive nouns can include proper names, in which case they are written capitalized.
Negative adjectives are formed by prefixing the negative "ne-", which is "almost" always a proper form even though sometimes, a Latin prefix is an alternative.
Comparative.
The "comparative" is formed by adding the ending "-ši" ("-ša", "-še"), "-ejši" ("-ejša", "-ejše") or "-ji" ("-ja", "-je") to an adjective, or using the word "bolj" (more) in front of an adjective in case of stressing and also when the adjective in question cannot be formed by adding an ending, such as when dealing with colours, or when the adjective ends in such a sound that it would be difficult to add the appropriate ending:
Superlative.
The "superlative" is formed by prepending the word "naj" directly in front of the comparative, whether it comprises one or two words.
Verbs.
In Slovenian, verbs are conjugated for 3 persons and 3 numbers (singular, dual, and plural). There are 4 tenses (present, past, pluperfect, and future), 3 moods (indicative, imperative, and conditional) and 2 voices (active and passive). Verbs also have 4 participles and 2 verbal nouns (infinitive and supine). Not all combinations of the above are possible for every case.
Gerund.
A gerund is a noun formed from a verb, designating an action or a state. The standard substantive in Slovenian ends in "-anje" or "-enje":
For example:
Adverb.
The adverb in Slovene is always the same as the singular neuter form of any given adjective if derived from an adjective.
— ; "Imeli smo se "lepo"." (literally, "We had ourselves nicely.", the meaning is 'We had a nice time.')
— ; "Govorili so "lepo"." (They spoke nicely.)
Other types of adverb are derived from nouns (doma (at home), jeseni (in autumn)), prepositional constructions (naglas (aloud), pozimi (in winter), potem (then)), verbs (nevede (unknowingly), skrivoma (secretly), mimogrede (by the way)) or numerals (see adverbial numeral).
In essence, there are four main types of adverb: "adverbs of time" (danes (today), večno (perpetually)), "adverbs of place" (domov (towards home, homewards)), "adverbs of manner" (grdo (uglily), povsem (entirely)) and "adverbs of cause and reason" (nalašč (on purpose)).
Adverbs are, much like adjectives, normally gradable.
Pronouns.
Pronouns can replace a noun in a sentence; this is, as opposed to, say, an adjective or an adverb.
Personal pronouns.
A personal pronoun denotes the speaker ("I"), the addressee ("you") or a third person ("it"). Personal pronouns in Slovene are inflected in a somewhat unusual way, for there are many different forms for each of the pronouns.
Several of the pronouns have unstressed and clitic forms that are unstressed, and may attach to another word. For example:
The nominative forms of personal pronouns are not used in neutral sentences, only when emphasizing the subject, especially so for the first person singular "jaz" "I". This is because unlike in English, the form of the verb gives all applicable information such as the gender, grammatical number and person by itself.
The reflexive pronoun begins with "s-" and is used to refer back to the subject, or to some other word.
For example:
Similarly as in English, the reflexive pronoun can sometimes be replaced by the reciprocal phrase "drug drugega" "each other, one another". Thus:
The accusative "se" can bind with prepositional words just like other personal pronouns:
Other cases and examples:
Interrogative pronouns.
The interrogative pronouns introduce direct and indirect questions. There are two nominative forms: "kdo" "who" and "kaj" "what".
Relative pronouns.
The substantival relative pronoun is derived from the interrogative by adding "-r": "kdor" "who, that", "kar" "which, that".
Negative pronouns.
The negative pronoun is derived from the interrogative as well, and starts with "ni-": "nihče" "nobody, anybody", "nič" "nothing, anything".
A negative pronoun demands a negative predicate, resulting in the so-called double negation:
Universal pronouns.
The universal pronouns are "vsakdo" "everyone" and "vse" "everything, all".
"Vsak" "each, every" is an adjective that can function as a pronoun. Also in this category are "vsakateri" and "vsakteri", both meaning "everyone", which are old-fashioned and not used in modern language.
Indefinite pronouns.
The indefinite pronoun is derived from the interrogative, and starts with "ne-": "nekdo" "someone, anyone", "nekaj" "something, anything". It refers to an unknown or deliberately untold person or object. The inflection follows the pattern of "kdo" and "kaj".
The interrogatives "kdo" and "kaj", can also refer to any unspecified person or object, or one that can be chosen at will.
Relative indefinite pronouns.
The relative indefinite pronouns are "kdorkoli" or "kdor koli" (whoever) and "karkoli" or "kar koli" (whatever). The meaning conveyed is very similar to the unspecified pronoun. The inflexion follows the pattern of the relative pronoun with "-koli" or " koli" appended. The space, as shown, is optional, but for sake of consistency, once one method has been adopted, one should not use the other.
Manifold pronouns.
The manifold pronouns are "marsikdo" "many (people)" and "marsikaj" "many (things)". The inflexion follows the basic pattern of "kdo" and "kaj". Although these pronouns refer to multiple people or things, they are grammatically singular. In addition to "marsi-", other prefixes are possible, such as "redko-" ("redkokdo" "rarely anyone"), "mnogo-" ("mnogokdo", same as "marsikdo", although perhaps somewhat less usual) and "malo-" ("malokdo" "few (people)").
Determiners.
Possessive determiners.
These all inflect as regular adjectives.
Example sentences:
The reflexive determiner "svoj" is used much as the reflexive pronoun is used, to point back to the subject or another word.
The reflexive possessive and 'normal' possessive pronouns make some ambiguous English sentences perfectly clear in Slovene. The sentence "She has taken her towel into the bathroom" can be translated into the following two ways:
Other determiners.
Quantitative adverbial pronouns are non-inflected at all times. All other pronouns are normally inflected.
Examples:
Interjection.
An interjection is ordinarily an uninflected word expressing mental states, encouragement towards actions, greetings or mocking of sounds and voices.
Interjections may be inflected; however, in spite of the words' being the same, such use calls for a different word class (part of speech), this most frequently being nouns. 
Syntax.
Case use.
The nominative case defines a subject of a sentence; all other cases define an object as either direct or indirect.
Use of number.
There are four types of inflexion related to the grammatical number in Slovene. The future tense is here 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") with gender for he ("on") and she ("ona") without it ("ono") can be written as:
can be translated into Slovene as:
Slovene has singular and plural but also has the rare dual grammatical number, a separate form of every noun used when there are only two such items (except for natural pairs, such as trousers, eyes, for which the 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.
Bil je lep jesenski dan. Odšla sva v park. Usedla