Belarusian grammar

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The current norms of Belarusian grammar were adopted in 1959. Belarusian Grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic. Belarusian orthography is constructed on the phonetic principle ("you write down what you hear") and is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of the Myensk-Vil'nya region, such as they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Initially, Belarusian grammar was formalised by notable Belarusian linguist Branislaw Tarashkyevich and first printed in Vil'nya (1918). Historically, there had existed several other alternative Belarusian grammars. See also Belarusian language#History.

1 Features
2 References

[edit] Features

[edit] Phonetics

The most prominent phonetic features of Belarusian are

akannye (Belarusian: аканне) – the tendency to pronounce unstressed "o" and "e" as clear open front unrounded vowel "a";
dzyekanye (Belarusian: дзеканне) – the pronunciation of palatalized "d" as soft affricate "dz";
tsyekannye (Belarusian: цеканне) – the pronunciation of palatalized "t" as soft affricate "ts";
strong palatalization of "s'" and "z'".

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

[edit] Some Belarusian sounds in IPA

Belarusian transcription	IPA	IPA definition	English approximation	Example in Belarusian
[ц]	[ʦ]	voiceless alveolar affricate	pizza	цэгла (brick)
[ц']	[ʨ]	voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	what's your	цвёрды (hard)
[ч]	[ʧ]	voiceless postalveolar affricate	kitchen	час (time)
[дз']	[ʥ]	voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	would you	моладзь (youth)
[дж]	[ʤ]	voiced postalveolar affricate	jam	ураджай (harvest)
[г]	[ɦ]	voiced glottal fricative	hockey (approx.)	гусь (goose)
[н']	[ɲ]	palatal nasal	el Niño	конь (horse)
[р]	[r]	alveolar trill	rolled (vibrating) r as in arriba	крок (step)
[с']	[ɕ]	voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	see (approx.)	снег (snow)
[ш]	[ʃ]	voiceless postalveolar fricative	sheer	шапка (hat)
[ў]	[w]	labial-velar approximant (semivowel)	window	даўно (long ago)
[ы]	[ɨ]	close central unrounded vowel	tick	акацыя (acacia)
[з']	[ʑ]	voiced alveolo-palatal fricative	where's your	змена (change)
[ж]	[ʒ]	voiced postalveolar fricative	treasure	жах (horror)

[edit] Nouns

There are six cases in Belarusian:

Nominative (Belarusian: назоўны, BGN/PCGN: nazowny)
Genitive (Belarusian: родны, BGN/PCGN: rodny)
Dative (Belarusian: давальны, BGN/PCGN: daval'ny)
Accusative (Belarusian: вінавальны, BGN/PCGN: vinaval'ny)
Instrumental (Belarusian: творны, BGN/PCGN: tvorny)
Locative (Belarusian: месны, BGN/PCGN: myesny)

Historically, there also existed a vocative case (Belarusian: клічны, BGN/PCGN: klichny), but in modern Belarusian it's used rarely, generally in literature, and usually is not mentioned in textbooks.

For nouns (Belarusian: назоўнікі, BGN/PCGN: nazowniki) there are several types of declension:

i-stem – feminine (feminine nouns ending in a hard consonant, soft consonant or ў: печ "stove", косць "bone", кроў "blood")
a-stem – mostly feminine (subdivided into four subgroups: hard stems, guttural stems, soft stems, hardened stems)
o-stem – masculine (subdivided into hard stem and soft stem) and neuter (вясло "oar", мора "sea")
consonantal stem – mostly neuter (ягня "lamb", бярэмя "burden", семя "seed")
irregular nouns (for example, вока "eye" and вуха "ear")

[edit] Pronouns

There are eight types of pronouns (Belarusian: займеннікі, BGN/PCGN: zaymyenniki) in Belarusian:

Possessive (прыналежныя): мой (my, mine); твой (your(s)familiar); яго, ягоны (his); яе, ейны (her); наш (our(s)); ваш (your(s)); іх, іхны (their(s)), свой ((one's) own).
Personal (асабовыя): я (I), ты (you (singular, familiar)), ён (he), яна (she), яно (it), мы (we), вы (you), яны (they);
Negative (адмоўныя): ніхто (nobody), нішто (nothing), нічый (nobody's), ніякі (not of any kind), ніводзін, ніводны (no one);
Definitive (азначальныя): сам (-self); самы (the very, - self); увесь (all, whole); усё (all, everything); усе (all, every, everybody); усякі, усялякі (every, any); кожны (each); іншы (other).
Indefinite (няпэўныя): нехта, хтосьці (someone, somebody); нешта, штосьці (something); нечы, чыйсьці (someone's, somebody's, a); некаторы (some of); некалькі (a few, some, several); нейкі, якісьці (some, a kind of, something like); хто-небудзь, хто-колечы (anybody); што-небудзь, што-колечы (anything); чый-небудзь (anybody's); абы-што (smth.dickey); абы-чый (a, somebody's (negative)); абы-які (dickey).
Interrogative-comparative (пытальныя): хто (who), што (what), які (which), каторы (which), чый (whose), колькі (how much);
Demonstrative (указальныя): той (that); гэты (this); гэны (those); такі (such); гэтакі (such, of this kind); столькі, гэтулькі (that much);
Reflexive (зваротны): сябе (-self).

Note: proper names and places’ names are rendered in BGN/PCGN