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In:Mathematical Modelling in Linguistics and Text Analysis: Theory and applications
Edited by Adam Pawłowski, Sheila Embleton, Jan Mačutek and Aris Xanthos
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 370] 2025
► pp. 27–42

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Noun declension in Slavic languages

Animacy has a stronger influence than gender

 | Mathematical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences | Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra
 | University of Vienna
 | Mathematical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences
 | University of Maribor
Published online: 13 October 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.370.03mac
Abstract
Some quantitative properties of inflexional morphology of nouns in four Slavic languages (Czech, Russian, Slovak, and Slovene) are presented. We analyse the frequency behaviour of grammatical cases and the variability of noun word forms. The difference between a word form and its lemma is expressed by Levenshtein distance. Across the four languages under study, word forms more similar to the nominative form occur more often. We observe that the category of animacy has a decisive influence on the properties under study, with grammatical gender being another important factor.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language material and methodology
    • 2.1Texts used
    • 2.2Methodological aspects
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Frequency of cases
    • 3.2Frequency of Levenshtein distances
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (22)
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