Množina imenica
Overview
Serbian marks the plural differently by gender: masculine nouns typically add -и, feminine -а-nouns swap it for -е, and neuter nouns swap -о/-е for -а - predictable directly from the gender you already learned to spot in noun-gender-a1.
This lesson covers only the nominative plural - the subject form. Every case lesson (genitive-case-a2, dative-case-a2, accusative-case-a2, instrumental-case-a2, locative-case-a2, vocative-case-a2) adds its own plural endings on top of what you learn here.
Masculine plural: -и, and the -ов-/-ев- infix
Most masculine nouns simply add -и to the consonant-final singular: студент → студенти, пријатељ (friend) → пријатељи. Nothing else changes.
A monosyllabic masculine noun - one syllable in the nominative singular - inserts -ов- or -ев- before that same -и. After a hard final consonant the infix is -ов-: град (city) → градови, мост (bridge) → мостови. After a soft/palatal final consonant (ч, ж, ш, ђ, ћ, џ, љ, њ, ј, ц) the infix is -ев- instead: кључ (key) → кључеви, нож (knife) → ножеви.
Feminine and neuter plural
Feminine nouns ending in -а swap it for -е: жена (woman) → жене, књига (book) → књиге. Feminine nouns ending in a consonant instead - the exception class from noun-gender-a1, like ноћ - take -и: ноћ (night) → ноћи.
Neuter nouns swap their singular -о or -е for -а: село (village) → села, поље (field) → поља. This covers most neuter nouns cleanly, but a small class of nouns ending in -е inserts an -ен- infix instead of a plain swap - име (name) → имена, време (time) → времена - so it isn't quite as exception-free as it looks.
Sibilarization and the fleeting а
When a masculine noun's stem ends in the velar consonants к, г, х, that consonant often softens to ц, з, с before the plural -и - sibilarization: ђак (pupil) → ђаци, бубрег (kidney) → бубрези, орах (walnut) → ораси. For a monosyllabic noun this usually replaces the -ов-/-ев- infix rather than joining it - one-syllable ђак just sibilarizes and adds -и, not *ђакови - but not always: век (century) → векови keeps its к unchanged and takes the infix instead, so a monosyllabic к/г/х-final noun still has to be checked rather than assumed.
Some masculine nouns carry a fleeting а (непостојано а) in their last syllable - a vowel that appears only in the nominative singular to break up an unpronounceable consonant cluster, and disappears once any ending is added: момак (young man) → момци, пас (dog) → пси. Момци shows both changes at once: the fleeting а drops (момак → момц-) and the exposed к sibilarizes to ц before -и.
Irregular plurals to memorize
A handful of very common nouns have a plural that no rule predicts and simply has to be learned as vocabulary: човек (person, man) → људи (people), око (eye) → очи (eyes), ухо (ear) → уши (ears). Очи and уши are relics of the old Slavic dual number, once reserved for naturally paired things.
Дете (child) → деца (children) and брат (brother) → браћа (brothers) are irregular the same way, with a twist: деца and браћа are themselves feminine-singular-shaped collective nouns with special verb agreement, covered in collective-verbal-nouns-b2. For now, just learn the plural word.
Tables
| Gender | Ending | Example |
|---|---|---|
| muški (suglasnik) | -i | student → studenti |
| muški (jedan slog, tvrd suglasnik) | -ovi | grad → gradovi |
| muški (jedan slog, mek suglasnik) | -evi | ključ → ključevi |
| ženski na „-a“ | -e | žena → žene |
| ženski na suglasnik | -i | noć → noći |
| srednji | -a | selo → sela |
Examples
Compared with…
English marks almost every plural with one ending, -s (or -es), regardless of gender - a category English nouns don't even have. Serbian instead picks the ending from gender, and layers sound changes (sibilarization, the fleeting а) that English's plain -s never triggers. The one genuine bridge is irregular plurals: English already has child→children and man→men, so a plural that must be memorized rather than derived is a familiar idea - only the words and their number (five, not two or three) differ.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- Predict the plural ending from the gender you already learned in noun-gender-a1: consonant-final masculine → -и (or -ови/-еви for one-syllable nouns), -а-feminine → -е, -о/-е-neuter → -а.
- Before assuming a one-syllable masculine noun just needs a plain -и, check its last consonant: hard → -ов-, soft/palatal (ч, ж, ш, ђ, ћ, џ, љ, њ, ј, ц) → -ев-, and к/г/х often sibilarize instead of taking any infix - but not always, so a noun like век (→ векови) still has to be checked individually.
- The five irregular plurals - човек→људи, дете→деца, брат→браћа, око→очи, ухо→уши - cannot be derived from any rule; learn them as fixed vocabulary pairs, the same way you memorize an English irregular plural like child→children.
- Sibilarization is one common outcome for a monosyllabic masculine noun ending in к, г or х - ђак → ђаци, never *ђакови - but it is not the only one: several everyday nouns of the same shape instead take the -ов- infix and do not sibilarize, like век (century) → векови, not *веци.
- Деца and браћа are, underneath the irregular meaning, grammatically feminine-singular-shaped collective nouns that trigger plural verb agreement - a behavior explored fully in collective-verbal-nouns-b2; at this level, just learn the plural form itself.
- Очи and уши are leftovers of the old Slavic dual number - a third grammatical number, alongside singular and plural, once reserved for naturally paired things - which is why they follow no regular plural ending at all.
Summary
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