# All Slavic languages: Vocative for nouns ending with -ec



## t.tellur

Hello, I want to ask one thing. I am especially interested about languages which retained full vocative. Ukrainian, Polish and BCS (not Czech, since it's my native  ). Well, even those languages which got only some remnants of this case can write here.
Do these Slavic languages have ending -če for vocative? Or is -cu possible in them (or some of their dialects)?
In other words do languages/dialects have vocative for words otec, mladec, slěpec

*otče!, mladče!, slěpče!*

or

*otcu!, mladcu!, slěpcu!*

As goes for Czech, here we got -če even in dialects (I haven't heard of otcu and it sounds very strange...Though it can exist, I'm not that great dialectologist).


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## Duya

BCS systemically has -če for nouns ending with -ac (-a- is our systemic reflex of yer):

_otac: oče, slepac:slepče, borac:borče_

Just as in Czech, there is certain tendency in spoken language to use -cu in some words. I've googled for "slepcu jedan" and there is a considerable number of hits (1860), mostly in forums and comments; "slepče jedan" gets 4300. However, I too find "ocu" in vocative fairly inadmissible.

In addition, some words of this type may get undeclined in nominative, chiefly if they denote some kind of nickname: "hej, malac!" (slang for 'kid'). Surnames in particular resist declension: I'm not sure what the standard says, but I wouldn't decline _Bekvalac_ or _Tkalac_ even in vocative.

I'd say that BCS vocative is in slow retention in spoken language, but far from dead yet. Some forms coalesce into simpler ones (like those on -če into -cu), and some get replaced with nominative.


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## iobyo

Macedonian doesn't really have distinct vocative forms for nouns ending in _-ец_. The reason for this is because the expected _-че_ is already so highly productive with forming diminutives. _Африканче_ is therefore a diminutive and not the vocative form of _Африканец_. There are a handful of exceptions though: _оче_, but it is inherited from Church Slavonic. 

Demonyms ending in _-ец_ (ex. _Македонец_), as a rule, never have vocative forms; but there is now a tendency to fill the void by improvising a vocative form with _-цу_ (rare: _македонецу_). As a result, examples such as _месече _(VOC 'month') nowadays co-occur with _месецу_, etc.

Something like _*слепче_ would hardly ever, if ever, be used because it resembles a diminutive and therefore might be perceived as pejorative (i.e. one generally doesn't refer to a another person's disability in an endearing way).


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## osemnais

Bulgarian uses о in this case: армеецо, стрелецо, слепецо, крадецо. One of the few if not only exception is отец - отче.


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## t.tellur

Thank you all! So it's possible to have slepcu! as well! I appreciate your effort.


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## swintok

In Ukrainian this type of noun belongs to the second declention and would normally take -e in the vocative, though there are some exceptions and there might be dialectal variations.

отець - отче
хлопець - хлопче
швець - шевче

but:
знавець - знавцю

Here is a citation from the Український правопис put out by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 2007:
Закінчення *-е* мають безсуфіксні іменники твердої групи, іменники м’якої групи із суфіксом* -ець* та деякі іменники мішаної групи, зокрема власні назви з основою на *ж, ч, ш, дж *і загальні назви з основою на* р, ж*: _Богдане, голубе, друже, козаче, мосте, орле, Петре, соколе, Степане, чумаче; женче_ (від _жнець_)_, кравче, молодче, хлопче, шевче _(але:_ бійцю, знавцю_); _гусляре, Довбуше, маляре, стороже, тесляре, школяре._


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## TriglavNationalPark

t.tellur said:


> Well, even those languages which got only some remnants of this case can write here.



Modern Slovenian doesn't have the vocative, but the word *oče* (= father) was originally the vocative form of "otec" (which no longer exists in Slovenian). This implies that proto-Slovenian also formed the vocative of *-ec* words using *-če*.


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## marco_2

In Polish, like in Czech, both endings occur for various nouns, 

*ojcze, **głupcze, **ślepcze, chłopcze, krawcze *(? sounds archaic, most people would probably say *krawcu*), but *człowieku* (although in older texts and in dialects also *człowiecze*) - it is the matter of _usus, _you should describe every noun separately.


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

The above example of _człowieku/człowiecze _is irrelevant, since its nominative form is człowi*ek*. The author was asking for wording ending in -ec.

I believe that in Polish words ending in -iec tend to take the vocative in -cze, while words ending in -ec tend to take the vocative in -cu (ex: walcu, smalcu). There are inevitably exceptions.


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## bibax

Necessary to add that in Czech the ending *-če* is only used for the animate masculine nouns. The inanimate masculine nouns (with etymologically the same ending -ec in nominative) have the ending *-ci* (from older _-cu_; with the so called Bohemian umlaut _u > i_) in vocative: "ó, hořký konci!" (o, bitter end!).


> ..... The reason for this is because the expected -че is already so highly productive with forming diminutives. Африканче is therefore a diminutive and not the vocative form of Африканец.


In Czech: Afrikánče is 1) vocative of Afrikánec 2) nom./acc./voc. of Afrikánče = an Afrikaner child. We have no problem with it (Afrikánče-_child_ is very rarely used). However we do not use diminutives like slepče, chlapče, starče, etc.


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