Lithuanian grammar has a highly inflectional morphology. Its nouns are inflected for numbers and cases. Its verbs are inflected for person, tense-aspect-mood, and voice. In additional, both its nouns and verbs have multiple inflectional classes.
Many linguists consider lithuanian grammar to be highly conservative. Compared to other modern descendents of Proto-Indo-European, Lithuanian preserves relatively more grammatical features and markers from their common ancestor.
Properties and morphological categories
Grammatical terminology {| class="wikitable" |- !rowspan="2" scope="col" | Category !colspan="2" scope="col" | Language |- ! Lithuanian ! English |- !rowspan="11" scope="row" | Parts of speech | daiktavardis || noun |- | būdvardis || adjective |- | veiksmažodis || verb |- | skaitvardis || numeral |- | įvardis || pronoun |- | prieveiksmis || adverb |- | dalelytė || particle |- | prielinksnis || preposition |- | jungtukas || conjunction |- | jaustukas || interjection |- | ištiktukas || verbal interjection |- !rowspan="7" scope="row" | Main cases (liñksniai) | vardininkas || nominative |- | kilmininkas || genitive |- | naudininkas || dative |- | galininkas || accusative |- | įnagininkas || instrumental |- | vietininkas || inessive |- | šauksmininkas || vocative |- !rowspan="3" scope="row" | Locative cases | iliatyvas, kryptininkas || illative |- | aliatyvas || allative |- | adesyvas || adessive |- !rowspan="3" scope="row" | Number (skai̇̃čiai) | vienaskaita || singular |- | dviskaita || dual |- | daugiskaita || plural |- !rowspan="3" scope="row" | Degrees of comparison (láipsniai) | nelyginamasis || positive |- | aukštesnysis || comparative |- | aukščiausiasis || superlative |- !rowspan="2" scope="row" | Genders (gi̇̀minės) | vyriškoji || masculine |- | moteriškoji || feminine |- !rowspan="4" scope="row" | Tenses (laikai̇̃) | esamasis || present |- | būtasis kartinis || past |- | būtasis dažninis || past iterative |- | būsimasis || future |- !rowspan="4" scope="row" | Moods (núosakos) | tiesioginė || indicative |- | netiesioginė || indirect |- | tariamoji || conditional (subjunctive) |- | liepiamoji || imperative |- !rowspan="2" scope="row" | Voices (rū́šys) | veikiamoji || active |- | neveikiamoji || passive |- !rowspan="2" scope="row" | Aspects (veikslai̇̃) | įvykio || perfective |- | eigos || continuous, progressive
Gender
Lithuanian nouns are classified into one of two genders: masculine feminine
Lithuanian adjectives, numerals, pronouns and participles are classified into one of three genders:
masculine feminine neuter
Since no noun can have a neutral gender, it is used with subjects of neutral or undefined gender:
Ji () yra graži () – She is beautiful. Mokytojas () bus pasirengęs () – The teacher will be ready. Skaityti buvo įdomu (neuter) – Reading was interesting.
The gender of a pronoun kas – 'who? what?', personal pronouns aš / mes – 'I' / 'we', tu / jūs – 'you (singular) / you (plural)' and a reflexive pronoun savęs is indefinite, it means any of the genders. The word kas uses masculine inflections, the other pronouns have their own specific paradigm. The nouns of the indefinite gender have feminine form inflections.
The masculine gender is also the indeterminate gender as in many other Indo-European languages. This means that for an entire mixed group of objects belonging to masculine and feminine genders, the masculine gender is used.In some languages like Icelandic neuter is used in such cases. The masculine as the indeterminate gender differs from the indefinite gender, which allows treatment of the word in two ways.
Note that there are many nouns that use masculine or feminine genders without any reason of biological gender, for instance, words that denote inanimate objects. The masculine or feminine usage of these words is stable (with few exceptions) and doesn't depend on the will of a speaker.
Lithuanian grammatical genders are similar to, for instance, Latin: {| class="wikitable" style="line-height: 1.4em;" |- valign=top | nominative genitive || vilkaswolfvilko || kalbalanguagekalbos || prekėcommodityprekės || piliscastlepilies || viršustopviršaus || akmuostoneakmens || girdė́tas, girdė́ta, girdė́taheard; gender sequence: , , girdė́to, girdė́tosfrom girdė́ti – to hear (continuing, imperfective action) || i̇̀šgirstas, išgirstà, i̇̀šgirstaheardi̇̀šgirsto, išgirstõsfrom išgir̃sti – to hear (one-time, perfective action) |- valign=top | nominative genitive || lupuswolflupī || lingualanguagelinguae || rēsthingreī || turristowerturris|| frūctusfruitfrūctūs || acūmen sharp pointacūminis || audītus, audīta, audītumheard, listened; from audīre – to hear, listenaudītī, audītae, audītī
Grammatical number
The Lithuanian language has two main numbers, singular and plural. It has also a dual number, which is used in certain dialects, such as Samogitian. Some words in the standard language retain their dual forms (for example du ("two") and abu ("both"), an indefinite number and super-plural words (dauginiai žodžiai in Lithuanian). Dual forms of pronouns used in the standard language are also optional.
The singular number indicates that the denoted thing is one or indivisible (as in méilė – love, smė̃lis – sand, pi̇́enas – milk). The plural number, when it can be in contrast with the singular, indicates that there are many of the things denoted by the word. But sometimes, when a word doesn't have the singular number, being a plurale tantum noun, the plural form doesn't indicate real singularity or plurality of the denoted object(s).
Adjectives and numerals also have the singular-plural distinction. Their number depends on that of the noun they are attributed to.
The dual number indicates a pair of things. Historically, the dual number has been a full grammatical number, participating as the third element in singular–dual–plural distinction. During the last century, the dual was used more or less sporadically in Lithuanian, sometimes reaching the status of a full number for agreement purposes, meaning the dual of noun required dual agreement in its adjectives or the dual of the subject required the dual of the verb. But in many more cases the dual was reduced to a nominal category explicitly indicating a pair of things, but not requiring dual agreement of adjectives or verbs. Presently, the dual is mostly used as a declension paradigm for numbers du – two, abu – both (and a variant abudu – idem) and with personal pronouns aš – I, mùdu – we two (mẽs – we) and tu – you, jùdu – you two (jū̃s – you).
| colspan=4| dual || || colspan=4| plural |- | present || past || future || imperative || || present || past || future || imperative |- | ei̇̃nava – we two are going; we two go || ė̃jova || ei̇̃siva || ei̇̃kiva – let us two go || || ei̇̃name || ė̃jome || ei̇̃sime || ei̇̃kime – let us go |- | ei̇̃nata – you two are going; you two go || ė̃jota || ei̇̃sita || ei̇̃kita – you two go || || ei̇̃nate || ė̃jote || ei̇̃site || ei̇̃kite |- | colspan=4| || || colspan=4| singular |- | colspan=4 rowspan=2| || || einù || ėjaũ || ei̇̃siu || |- | || eini̇̀ || ėjai̇̃ || ei̇̃si || ei̇̃k – go
The indefinite number indicates that the same form of the word can be understood singular or plural, depending both on situation and on other words in the sentence. There are only few words that demonstrate indefinite number, and the indefinite number doesn't have its own forms in Lithuanian. These words are pronouns kas – 'who? what?', kažkas – 'something, somebody' and reflexive pronoun savęs. All of them use inflections of the singular.
The super-plural words are a few numbers and pronouns that indicate a counting not of separate things, but of groups of things.
keleri – 'several (groups of)' abeji – 'both (groups of)' (vieneri – 'one (group of)') dveji – 'two (groups of)' treji – 'three (groups of)' ketveri – 'four (groups of)' penkeri – 'five (groups of)' šešeri – 'six (groups of)' septyneri – 'seven (groups of)' aštuoneri – 'eight (groups of)' devyneri – 'nine (groups of)'
These words are also used with plurale tantum nouns instead of plural words (keli, abu, du, trys and so on), in which case they indicate not the plural of groups, but just the semantic plural or singular (a word vieneri – 'one' only) of the noun.
Cases of declined words
Nominative – vardininkas Genitive – kilmininkas; it also functions similarly to the ablative case in other languages. Dative – naudininkas Accusative – galininkas Instrumental – įnagininkas Locative cases: Locative (inessive) – vietininkas Illative – (iliatyvas, sometimes referred as kryptininkas); dialectal, without clear status in the standard Lithuanian Allative; obsolete, the singular is reduced to adverbs Adessive; extinct Vocative – šauksmininkas
Examples of the locative cases: inessive is fully used locative case (and the only one of Indo-European origin, the following three being borrowed from Uralic). An example: nãmas – a house, namè – in a house, vyruose – in men. It is also used for a temporal meaning in some words: vakarè – in the evening (vãkaras 'an evening'). But more nouns are used in accusative for the latter meaning: vãsarą – in summer, rùdenį – in autumn, trẽčią vãlandą – in three o'clock. This accusative form also means duration: trečią dieną kepina (kepina is idiomatic or slang in such meaning) – it is the third day when it (sun) sizzles (its heat). Plural forms for temporal "locatives" are expressed by instrumental: vakarai̇̃s – in / by evenings, vãsaromis – in / by summers. illative is used sparingly. Some terms are normal, for example, in law: patráukti baudžiamõjon atsakomýbėn – to prosecute; literally: to draw, pull, move to penal amenability (not į (to) baudžiamają atsakomybę , not (for) baudžiamajai atsakomybei dative). Other examples: singular káiman – to(wards) the village, miškañ – to(wards) a forest, and forms of the common language į káimą, į mi̇̀šką; plural káimuos-na, miškúos-na and common forms į káimus, į miškùs; allative. Examples: namop – up to the home. Today it is used only in a few idiomic expressions like vakaróp – about nightfall, velnióp – to hell with smth.; šuniop – down the drain (about dog, to a dog); galóp – ultimately; nuteisti myriop – to send to the scaffold; adessive. Examples: lauki̇́e-p – beside the field, at the field, nami̇́e-p . It is a historical or dialectal case, extinct in modern standard Lithuanian, but it is preserved in the adverbs: namie – at home, netoli(e) – not far, toli(e) – far, arti(e) – nearby, vienaip ar kitaip – anyway, savaip – in one's own fashion/way, tavaip – in your () fashion/way, visaip – diversely. etc.
The later three locatives are adverb-forming cases.
Nouns
Lithuanian grammar makes a distinction between proper and common nouns. Only proper nouns are capitalized. Some nouns, for example sun and moon, can be both proper and common. There are no articles in Lithuanian.
The genders of nouns are masculine and feminine. A rough rule of thumb is that almost all masculine nouns in nominative case end in -s and most feminine in -(i)a or -ė. There are no strict rules governing the gender. For example, upė – river, is feminine, but upelis – rivulet, is masculine. There is no neuter gender ("it gender"), but there are a few words that can be applied to both genders equally. They mostly describe people, have negative connotations, and end in -a, for example vė́pla – dummy, el̃geta – beggar, nakti̇̀balda – night-lumberer, a person who does not sleep at night, but mėmė̃ – gawk.
There are no separate declension paradigms for animate and inanimate nouns in Lithuanian.
Number