In “Plural formation” you learned to turn one into many with three endings: gradovi, žene, sela. But some Serbian nouns deal with number differently. Some exist only in the plural and have no singular at all. Others stand in the singular and yet name a whole heap of things. And three words decline like a singular noun but want their verb in the plural. This lesson is about these three groups.
Some of this will feel familiar. English has plural-only nouns too (scissors, trousers, glasses), singular nouns that name a mass of things (foliage, furniture, luggage), and even nouns whose verb follows the meaning rather than the form (the police are here). What differs is which words fall into each group and how the words around them agree, and those differences are exactly where learners trip.
Pluralia tantum: nouns without a singular
Very often these are things made of two parts: a door with two leaves, glasses with two lenses, scissors with two blades. Such nouns simply have no singular: the dictionary form is already plural. Gender still matters, because it decides the endings of adjectives and of the past tense: the -a words are neuter plural, the -e words feminine plural. The verb is always plural.
Some of them follow the English logic: naočare “glasses”, makaze “scissors”, pantalone “trousers” are plural-only in both languages. But look at the last column: five of the eight are singular in English, and that is where the traps are. vrata is a gate, and it is also an ordinary room door: one single door is still vrata, plural. kola is one car (a neuter noun in the plural), novine is one newspaper, usta is one mouth, leđa is one back. Your English singular is no guide here: “door”, “car”, “newspaper” are singular for you and plural in form for a Serb. And not every object is plural: sat “clock, watch” is an ordinary singular noun, just as in English: Gde mi je sat? “Where’s my watch?”
Vrata su bila otvorena, a novine su bile na stolu.The door was open, and the newspaper was on the table.
Kola su ispred kuće.The car is in front of the house.
How to count them
The usual forms jedan and dva do not go with such nouns. “One” goes into the plural too: jedna vrata, jedna kola with neuter nouns, jedne makaze, jedne naočare, jedne novine with feminine ones. Instead of dva and tri, Serbian uses special number words, which also follow the gender: dvoja, troja with neuter nouns (dvoja vrata, troja kola), dvoje, troje with feminine ones (dvoje naočare, troje makaze).
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Three groups. Only a plural (pluralia tantum): vrata, makaze. Collectives (zbirne imenice): singular in form, many things in meaning (cveće, lišće). deca, braća, gospoda: decline as a feminine singular, take a plural verb.
Pluralia tantum: no singular
Counting them
Collectives in -je: a mass, not items
Collectives in -ad
The trio deca, braća, gospoda
The plural of dete, brat, gospodin. They decline like žena, in the feminine singular:
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