Abstract noun suffixes
In short
| Ending | From | Gender | Declines like | Gen sg | Ins sg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ost | adjective | f | stvar (i-decl.) | odgovornosti | odgovornošću |
| -stvo | noun/adj. | n | selo | bogatstva | bogatstvom |
| -oća | adjective | f | žena | čistoće | čistoćom |
| -ina | adjective | f | žena | većine | većinom |
| -ba | verb | f | žena | borbe | borbom |
-ost ends in a consonant but is feminine: velika odgovornost.
B2 · Lesson 35 · Apstraktne imenice: -ost, -stvo, -oća
The full explanation, from the lesson that teaches this rule
English turns responsible into responsibility and friend into friendship. Serbian does the same thing with a small set of endings, and it does it far more regularly: nearly every adjective you know hides an abstract noun. Odgovoran (responsible) gives odgovornost (responsibility), prijatelj (friend) gives prijateljstvo (friendship), sam (alone) gives samoća (loneliness).
The useful part is this: the ending tells you the noun's gender and how it declines. You never have to look that up separately. Learn five endings and you know how to use hundreds of nouns in every case.
The five endings
| Ending | Built from | Examples | Gender and declension |
|---|---|---|---|
| -ost | adjectives (the big one) | odgovoran → odgovornost, jednak → jednakost, hrabar → hrabrost, iskren → iskrenost, mlad → mladost, vredan → vrednost | feminine, i-declension (like stvar) |
| -stvo | nouns and adjectives | prijatelj → prijateljstvo, bogat → bogatstvo, siromah → siromaštvo, čovek → čovečanstvo, rob → ropstvo | neuter, like selo |
| -oća | short adjectives | čist → čistoća, sam → samoća, lak → lakoća | feminine, like žena |
| -ina | adjectives (often size or quantity) | veći → većina, manji → manjina, tih → tišina, dubok → dubina, visok → visina | feminine, like žena |
| -ba | verbs | boriti se → borba, žaliti se → žalba, moliti → molba, služiti → služba | feminine, like žena |
Only -ost is truly productive: you can attach it to almost any adjective and be understood. The other four are fixed in particular words, so treat them as patterns that help you recognise a noun and decline it, not as endings to invent new words with.
Watch the sound changes you already know. In siromah → siromaštvo and rob → ropstvo the consonant before -stvo adjusts (h becomes š, b becomes p before the voiceless s), and in čovek → čovečanstvo the k softens to č. In tih → tišina the h becomes š. The ending is the same; only the joint changes.
What the ending does to the grammar
Here is one noun from each declension group. Every -ost noun declines like odgovornost, every -stvo noun like bogatstvo, and every noun in -oća, -ina or -ba like borba.
| Case | -ost (feminine, i-declension) | -stvo (neuter) | -oća / -ina / -ba (feminine, a-declension) |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | odgovornost | bogatstvo | borba |
| genitive | odgovornosti | bogatstva | borbe |
| dative / locative | odgovornosti | bogatstvu | borbi |
| accusative | odgovornost | bogatstvo | borbu |
| instrumental | odgovornošću / odgovornosti | bogatstvom | borbom |
| nominative plural | odgovornosti | bogatstva | borbe |
| genitive plural | odgovornosti | bogatstava | borbi |
So Razgovarali smo o jednakosti (we talked about equality) has the i-declension locative -i, Borba protiv siromaštva (the fight against poverty) has the neuter genitive -a, and Uložio sam žalbu (I lodged an appeal) has the ordinary feminine accusative -u.
- -stvo, locative -u: u društvu (in society), u siromaštvu (in poverty)
- -oća, genitive -e: strah od samoće (fear of loneliness)
- -ina, accusative -u: reći istinu (to tell the truth)
- -ba, accusative -u: napisati molbu (to write a request)
- -ina, instrumental -om: većinom glasova (by a majority of votes)
The trap: an -ost noun ends in a consonant, so it looks masculine. It is always feminine. Say velika odgovornost, važna vrednost — never veliki odgovornost. The same goes for a past participle: Odgovornost je bila naša, not bio.
The instrumental of an -ost noun has two forms. The long one, -ošću (s velikom iskrenošću — with great honesty), is the usual one after an adjective or s(a); the short one, -osti, also exists. The st + j meeting that produces šć is the same jotation you saw in comparatives.
-ina: abstract noun or augmentative?
You met -ina before as an augmentative ending that makes things bigger. On an adjective it does something else: veći (bigger, more) → većina (the majority), tih (quiet) → tišina (silence). If the base is an adjective, read -ina as a quality or a quantity, not as size.
Check what you read
6 of the 16 questions this lesson asks in the app. Type the form or pick the answer.
*Jednakost* ends in a consonant. What gender is it?
What gender is *prijateljstvo*, and which noun does it decline like?
What is *borba* built from?
Govorio je s velikom(iskrenost) o svojim greškama.
Mnogo se priča o(jednakost) žena i muškaraca.
U ovom(društvo) ljudi malo veruju jedni drugima.
Examples from the course
The marked word is where the rule applies. Press play to hear the sentence.
To ne može da bude slučajnost, sve se previše dobro uklapa.
That can't be a coincidence, everything fits together too well.
Moja sestra je veoma štedljiva i nikad ne troši novac na gluposti.
My sister is very thrifty and never spends money on nonsense.
Sentences in the course that use this rule: 2