Romanian grammar

Standard Romanian (i.e. the Daco-Romanian language within Eastern Romance) shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, namely Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian.

As a Romance language, Romanian shares many characteristics with its more distant relatives: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, etc. However, Romanian has preserved certain features of Latin grammar that have been lost elsewhere. This could be explained by a host of factors such as: relative isolation in the Balkans, possible pre-existence of identical grammatical structures in its substratum (as opposed to the substrata over which the other Romance languages developed), and existence of similar elements in the neighboring languages. One Latin element that has survived in Romanian while having disappeared from other Romance languages is the morphological case differentiation in nouns. Nevertheless, declensions have been reduced to only three forms (nominative/accusative, genitive/dative, and vocative) from the original six or seven. Another, that is only seen marginally in other Romance languages such as Italian, is the retention of the neuter gender in nouns.

Romanian is attested from the 16th century. The first Romanian grammar was Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai, published in 1780. Many modern writings on Romanian grammar, in particular, most of those published by the Romanian Academy (), are prescriptive; the rules regarding plural formation, verb conjugation, word spelling and meanings, etc. are revised periodically to include new tendencies in the language.

Nouns

Gender

Romanian nouns are categorized into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The neuter behaves like the masculine in the singular and the feminine in the plural, unlike the neuter in Latin which had distinct forms. Nouns which in their dictionary form (singular, nominative, with no article) end in a consonant or the vowel/semivowel -u are mostly masculine or neuter; if they end in -ă or -a they are usually feminine. In the plural, the ending -i corresponds generally to masculine nouns, whereas feminine and neuter nouns often end in -e. In synchronic terms, Romanian neuter nouns can also be analysed as "ambigeneric", that is as being masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural (see below) and even in diachronic terms certain linguists have argued that this pattern, as well as that of case differentiation, was in a sense "re-invented" rather than a "direct" continuation of the Latin neuter. However, most noun genders correspond to Latin categorization, such as first declension which remained feminine. Similarly third declension nouns retained the gender from Latin, neuter included, most likely reinforced by the Latin plural form -ores which gave the feminine plural -uri in Romanian. Second declension nouns were reanalysed on their semantic characteristic (cervus >cerb "stag" remained masculine but campus >câmp "field" became neuter). As for the fourth declension, the nouns were analysed in regards to their plural endings as the declension collapsed into the second, being reassigned as neutral based on the -ores plural form. The change of gender can thus be explained by syncretism and homophony.

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan=2 |

! colspan=2 | Masculine

! colspan=2 | Feminine

! Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural

! Nominative Accusative

| Lat. acc. → Rom. → , ,

| Lat. nom. → Rom. →

| Lat. acc. → Rom. → →

| Lat. nom. → Rom.

! Genitive Dative

| Late Lat. dat. , influenced by and vulgar → Rom.

| Lat. gen. → Rom.

| Lat. dat. , influenced by → Rom.

| Lat. gen. (gender distinction lost) → Rom.

Examples:

Masculine nouns (singular, nominative/accusative):

: – ('forest' – 'the forest');

: – ('tree' – 'the tree');

: – ('brother' – 'the brother');

: – ('father' – 'the father').

Neuter nouns (singular, nominative/accusative):

: – ('theater' – 'the theater');

: – ('place' – 'the place');

Feminine nouns (singular, nominative/accusative):

:casă – casa (house – the house);

:floare – floarea (flower – the flower);

:cutie – cutia (box – the box);

:stea – steaua (star – the star);

Indefinite article

The Romanian indefinite article, unlike the definite article, is placed before the noun, and has likewise derived from Latin:

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan=2 |

! colspan=2 | Masculine

! colspan=2 | Feminine

! Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural

! Nominative Accusative

| Lat. acc. ūnum → Rom. un

| Lat. nescio quid → Rom. niște

| Lat. acc. ūnam → Rom. o

| Lat. nescio quid → Rom. niște

! Genitive Dative

| Lat. dat. ūnī, infl. by cui → Rom. unui

| Lat. gen. ūnōrum → Rom. unor

| Lat. gen./dat. ūnae, infl. by cui → Rom. unei

| Lat. gen. ūnōrum (gender distinction lost) → Rom. unor

(The Latin phrase nescio quid means "I don't know what".)

Nouns in the vocative case cannot be determined by an indefinite article.

Examples of indefinite article usage:

Masculine:
nominative/accusative: singular un copil (a child) – plural niște copii ([some] children);
genitive/dative: singular unui copil (of/to a child) – plural unor copii (of/to [some] children);
Neuter:
nominative/accusative: singular un loc (a place) – plural niște locuri ([some] places);
genitive/dative: singular unui loc (of/to a place) – plural unor locuri (of/to [some] places);
Feminine:
nominative/accusative: singular o masă (a table) – plural niște mese ([some] tables);
genitive/dative: singular unei mese (of/to a table) – plural unor mese (of/to [some] tables);

Article appended to adjectives

When a noun is determined by an adjective, the normal word order is noun + adjective, and the article (definite or indefinite) is appended to the noun. However, the word order adjective + noun is also possible, mostly used for emphasis on the adjective. Then, the article and the case marker, if any, are applied to the adjective instead:

Noun + adjective (normal order):

:un student bun (a good student);

:studentul bun (the good student);

:unui student bun (to a good student);

:studentului bun (to the good student).

Adjective + noun (reversed order):

:un bun student (a good student);

:bunul student (the good student);

:unui bun student (to a good student);

:bunului student (to the good student).

Demonstrative article

The demonstrative article is used to put emphasis on the relative superlative of adjectives. The forms are cel and celui (m. sg.), cea and celei (f. sg.), cei and celor (m. pl.) and cele and celor (f. pl.).

Genitival article

There are situations in Romanian when the noun in the genitive requires the presence of the so-called genitival (or possessive) article (see for example the section "Genitive" in "Romanian nouns"), somewhat similar to the English preposition of, for example in a map of China. In Romanian this becomes o hartă a Chinei, where "a" is the genitival article. The table below shows how the genitival articles depend on gender and number.

{| class="wikitable"

! style="width: 6em" | Masculine

! style="width: 6em" | Neuter

! style="width: 6em" | Feminine

! Singular

| style="text-align:center" colspan=2 | al

| style="text-align:center" | a

! Plural

| style="text-align:center" | ai

| style="text-align:center" colspan=2 | ale

The genitival article also has genitive/dative forms, which are used only with a possessive pronoun. They are: alui (m. sg.), alei (f. sg.), and alor (pl., both genders). These forms are rarely used—especially the singular ones—and the sentences are usually rephrased to avoid them.

Adjectives

Romanian adjectives determine the quality of things. They can only fulfill the syntactical functions of attribute and of adjectival complement, which in Romanian is called nume predicativ (nominal predicative).

Adjective inflection

Adjectives in Romanian inflect for number and gender (and for case in the feminine singular genitive/dative). Most adjectives have distinct forms for all combinations (especially those with the basic form ending in consonants, or -u), some that distinguish gender only in the singular (often ending in -g or -c or in a diphthong), others that do not distinguish gender (usually ending in -e), and a few that distinguish neither gender nor number (often colors, or loanwords).

Adjectives such as amar ("bitter, rude"), curat ("clean") inflect for both gender and number, having four distinct forms:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! |

! Singular

! Plural

! style="text-align: left;" | Masculine

| rowspan="2" | amar

| amari

! style="text-align: left;" | Neuter

| rowspan="2" |amare

! style="text-align: left;" | Feminine

| amară

Adjectives such as lung ("long"), mic ("small"), nou ("new") inflect for gender in the singular only, showing -i in plural forms:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! |

! Singular

! Plural

! style="text-align: left;" | Masculine

| rowspan="2" | lung

| rowspan="3" | lungi

! style="text-align: left;" | Neuter

! style="text-align: left;" | Feminine

| lungă

Adjectives such as verde ("green"), mare ("big"), moale ("soft") only inflect for number:

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! Singular

! Plural

!Masculine

| rowspan="3" | verde

| rowspan="3" | verzi

!Neuter

!Feminine

Borrowed adjectives such as oranj ("orange") is called invariable, having just one inflected form.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! Adjective

| oranj

Adjectives that have more than one inflected form are called variable.

Adjective syntax

Syntactical functions of the adjective can be:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan="2" |

! Singular

! Plural

! colspan="2" style="text-align: left;" | First person

| eu

| noi

! colspan="2" style="text-align: left;" | Second person

| tu

| voi

! rowspan="2" style="text-align: left;" | Third person

! Masc.

| el

| ei

! Fem.

| ea

| ele

The pronouns above are those in the nominative case. They are usually omitted in Romanian unless it is necessary to disambiguate the meaning of a sentence. Usually, the verb ending provides information about the subject. The feminine forms of plural pronouns are used only for groups of persons or items of exclusively female gender. If the group contains elements of both genders, the masculine form is used. Pronouns in the vocative case in Romanian, which is used for exclamations, or summoning, also take the forms of the nominative case.

Accusative case

The accusative forms of the pronouns come in two forms: a stressed and an unstressed form: It should also be noted that mata, mătăluță and similar pronouns were considered polite pronouns in the past, but nowadays only rural communities use them (for example, between neighbours).

The polite pronouns all have the same forms in all cases (the only exception being , with the genitive/dative form of dumitale), and they exist only in the second and third person, due to their not being used to refer to oneself:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan="2" |

! Singular

! Plural

! colspan="2" style="text-align: left;" | Second person

| , domnia ta

! rowspan="4" style="text-align: left;" | Third person

! style="text-align: left;" | Masc.

| ,

| rowspan="2" | ,

! style="text-align: left;" | Fem.

| ,

A peculiarity of Romanian among Romance languages is the development of an intermediary level of politeness created with the aid of Old Romanian , a variant of the personal pronoun , formed from the preposition and the focal particle , itself from the Latin pronoun . Together with the singular second person polite pronoun it expresses a minimum of politeness, but higher than personal pronouns:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan="1" |

! Personal

! Intermediary

! Polite

! Second person singular

! Third person singular

| /

! Third person plural

| /

Demonstrative pronouns

There are many demonstrative pronouns (pronume demonstrative) in Romanian. They are classified as pronume de apropiere, pronume de depărtare, pronume de diferențiere, pronume de identitate, which mean, respectively, pronouns of proximity, pronouns of remoteness, pronouns of differentiation, and pronouns of identity.

Pronouns of proximity and remoteness

These pronouns describe objects which are either close to the speaker, or farther away from the speaker (formal register/informal register):

Prepositions with dative

The only prepositions that demand the Dative Case, are: grație (thanks to), datorită (through, with), mulțumită (thanks to), conform (as per), contrar (against), potrivit (according to), aidoma — archaic — (like, similar to), asemenea (such).

Prepositions with genitive

Other prepositions require the genitive case of nouns. Note that some prepositions of this sort have evolved from phrases with feminine nouns and, as a consequence, require a feminine possessive form when the object is a pronoun; e.g., împotriva mea (against me).

Interjections

In Romanian there are many interjections, and they are commonly used. Those that denote sounds made by animals or objects are called onomatopee, a form similar to the English language onomatopoeia. Below, some interjections and their approximative equivalent in English are shown.

Common interjections

Vai! – Oh, my! / Oh, dear!
Ah! – same as in English
Oau! – Wow! (often spelled "uau" to mirror english spelling)
Of! – equivalent to a sigh
Hmmm... – said when thinking
Mamă-mamă – said when expressing something cool or extraordinary
Iată – somewhat like behold!

Onomatopoeia

lip-lip – the sound made when slurping liquids (usually by dogs)
țuști – a sound designating a quick move
mor-mor – the sound a bear makes
cucurigu – the sound a rooster makes, cock-a-doodle-doo!
ham-ham – the sound a dog makes, bark!
miau – the sound a cat makes, meow!
cip-cirip – the sound birds make, chirp!
mu – the sound a cow makes, moo!
mac-mac – the sound ducks make, quack!

Use within sentences

Within a sentence, interjections can function as attributes, verbal equivalents, or they can be used as filler, which has no syntactical function at all.

Attribute: Mi-am luat o fustă mamă-mamă. I bought a cool skirt.
Verbal Equivalent: Iată-l pe Ion. Look, there is Ion
Filler: Hmmm... Mă gândesc ce să fac. Hmmm... I am thinking about what to do.

Phrase syntax

Romanian has terminology and rules for phrase syntax, which describes the way simple sentences relate to one another within a single complex sentence. There are many functions a simple sentence may take, their number usually being determined by the number of predicates. It is also noteworthy that Romanian terminology for the terms simple sentence, complex sentence, and phrase is somewhat counterintuitive. The Romanian term propoziție means as much as simple sentence (or clause). To describe a complex sentence (or compound sentence), Romanian uses the word frază, which can cause confusion with the English word phrase, which describes not a complex sentence, but a grouping of words. In consequence, Romanian doesn't have terms for the English noun phrase, or verb phrase, preferring the more commonly understood term predicate for the latter. The former has no formal equivalent in Romanian.

Simple sentences can be of two types: main clauses and subordinate clauses

Main clause

The main clause, within a complex sentence, does not rely on another sentence to be fully understood. In other words, it has stand-alone meaning. The following example has the verb phrase underlined.

Example:

:Am văzut copiii din curtea școlii.

:I have seen the children in the school courtyard.

Even though this sentence is long, it is still composed of a single simple sentence, which is a main clause.

Subordinate clause

A subordinate clause cannot have a stand-alone meaning. It relies on a main clause to give it meaning. It usually determines or defines an element of another clause, be it a main clause, or a subordinate one. The following example has the verb phrase underlined, and the element of relation, which is to say, the relative pronoun used to link the two sentences, in bold. The sentences are also separated and numbered.

Example:

:Am văzut copiii 1/ care sunt în curtea școlii. 2/

:I have seen the children 1/ who are in the school courtyard. 2/

There are also subordinate clauses other than the relative clause, which is an attributive clause, since it determines a noun, pronoun or numeral, and not a verb phrase. Here is a list of examples illustrating some of the remaining cases:

Direct Object Clause (propoziție subordonată completivă directă):

:Înțeleg 1/ ce zice profesoara. 2/

:I understand 1/ what the teacher is saying. 2/

Indirect Object Clause (propoziție subordonată completivă indirectă):

:Mă gândesc 1/ la ce spune profesoara. 2/

:I am thinking 1/ about what the teacher is saying. 2/

Subject Clause (propoziție subordonată subiectivă):

:Ceea ce zice profesoara, 1/ e corect. 2/

:What the teacher is saying, 1/ is true. 2/

Local Circumstantial Object Clause (propoziție subordonată completivă circumstanțială de loc):

:Mă văd cu Ionuț 1/ unde (mi-)a propus el. 2/

:I am meeting Johnny 1/ where he proposed (to me). 2/

Clauses introduced by coordinating conjunctions

Some conjunctions are called coordinating because they do not define the type of clause introduced. Rather, they coordinate an existing clause with another, making the new clause of the same type as the other one. The coordinating conjunctions are of four types (note that the list is not exhaustive):

The copulative conjunctions are: și (and), nici (neither), and precum și (as well as).
The adversative conjunctions are: dar/însă/ci (but) and iar (on the other hand).
The disjunctive conjunctions are: sau/ori/fie (or/either).
The conclusive conjunctions are: deci/așadar (thus), în concluzie (in conclusion), and prin urmare (therefore).

An example of two main clauses (1, 2) linked together by a coordinative conjunction (bold) is:

:Ana este o fată 1/ și Ion este un băiat. 2/

:Ana is a girl, 1/ and Ion is a boy. 2/

Two subordinate clauses (2, 3) can also be joined to the same end:

:V-am spus despre băiatul 1/ care este la mine în clasă, 2/ și care este foarte bun la matematică. 3/

:I have told you about the boy 1/ who is in my class, 2/ and who is very good in mathematics. 3/

The same effect of two main clauses (1, 2) being tied together can also be achieved via juxtaposition of the sentences using a comma:

:Am păzit palatul<big>,</big> 1/ palatul era și foarte greu de păzit. 2/

:I guarded the palace<big>,</big> 1/ the palace was very hard to guard, too. 2/

References

Bibliography

Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, ed. The Grammar of Romanian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin & Ion Giurgea, eds. A Reference Grammar of Romanian, vol. 1: The Noun Phrase. John Benjamins, 2013.

External links

Very detailed Romanian grammar (PDF; 183 pages; 4.6 MB)
Romanian Grammar Workbook (1996) for Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps (Moldova)
Verbix: Romanian verbs conjugation (Attention: Generally good output, but a few verbs are not conjugated correctly.)
Romanian <-> English online dictionary and Romanian verb conjugator (few mistakes)
Romanian online dictionary and lemmatizer