Reference
Glossary
Short definitions for the terms used across this site.
- Case
- A word's job in a sentence, shown by its form. Slovak has six active cases.
- Nominative
- The subject case: who or what performs the action. Also the usual dictionary form for nouns and adjectives (the lemma), such as Peter in Peter číta knihu.
- Declension
- The set of ending changes used by nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and numerals for case, number, and gender.
- Conjugation
- The set of verb-form changes for person, number, tense, mood, and sometimes gender.
- Tense
- The time of an action: present, past, or future. Tense is one part of conjugation.
- Gender
- A noun class: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Gender affects related word endings.
- Agreement
- When related words take matching forms, such as an adjective matching a noun's gender, number, and case.
- Lemma
- The dictionary headword for a word: the citation form you look up. For verbs that is the infinitive (robiť); for nouns, nominative singular (stôl); for adjectives, masculine nominative singular (dobrý).
- Infinitive
- The dictionary form of a verb: its unconjugated base form, such as rozumieť, “to understand.” For verbs, the infinitive is the lemma.
- Aspect
- Whether a verb presents an action as ongoing or completed. Slovak aspect is separate from tense: the same past time can be imperfective (process) or perfective (finished).
- Imperfective
- The aspect for process, habit, or an unbounded activity — what was going on, not that it finished. Dictionary glosses mark these verbs with (imperfective).
- Perfective
- The aspect for a completed, bounded, or result-focused event. Dictionary glosses mark these verbs with (perfective).