Belarusian grammar

The main means of representation of the grammatical meanings in the Belarusian language are:

• affixes — "стол – стала", "кідаць – кінуць";
• suppletivism — "я – мяне", "чалавек – людзі", "браць – узяць";
• intonation — "ён гэта зрабіў – ён гэта зрабіў?";
• function words — "чытаў бы", "будзеш ведаць";
• root combining — "хадзіцьму = хадзіць+іму – маю хадзіць";
• reduplication — "белы-белы";
• order of words — "цікавая кніга – кніга цікавая".

Methods of analytical construction are also present. E.g., the word "лесам", which is the instrumental of "лес" — forest, may grammatically mean:

• circumstance, if used with verbs of motion — "ехаць лесам";
• specification, if together with other verbs — "валодаць лесам".

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 it is used only sparingly in modern Belarusian, like Slovene, Slovak and the closely related Russian, 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")

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

• Personal (асабовыя):

• Interrogative-comparative (пытальныя):

які (which), каторы (which), чый (whose), колькі (how much)

• Demonstrative (указальныя):

той (that); такі, гэтакі (such, of this kind); столькі, гэтулькі (that much)

• Possessive (прыналежныя):

• 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);

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