Carpathian nouns

Most of the Proto-Indo-European declensional classes were retained, with the exception of the consonant-stems, which were gradually falling out of use, being replaced by other, more productive classes.

Carpathian nouns have three grammatical categories: gender (masculine, feminine, common and neuter), number (singular, dual and plural) and seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative with only three different case forms being distinguished in the dual number.

Accent classes

All Carpathian nouns belong to one of the three accent classes:

• AS (acute stative) – acute accent (tone-1) fixed on (usually) the initial syllable.
• CS (circumflex stative) – fixed circumflex accent (tone-2) or grave accent (tone-3) on any syllable. For neuter stems it is the final syllable, while for all other genders it is typically the first or the second syllable.
• M (mobile) – the pitch (tone-2 or tone-3) alternates between final and non-final (usually initial) position.

Classes

There are seven main stem classes in Carpathian, being defined by their specific case endings: a-stem, u-stem, i-stem ā-stem, ī-stem, ū-stem, and consonant-stem, the latter consisting of several subclasses. The following tables are examples of Eastern Carpathian noun-class paradigms, Western Carpathian has the same noun classes, so for the sake of brevity only the Eastern forms are shown. The example words belong to the M-paradigm, because the pitch pattern of the other two paradigms is predictable.

a-stem nouns

There are two subclasses: masculine "as"-nouns (deiwas “god”) and neuter "a"-nouns (àzera “lake”). In some dialects the nominative singular of the "as"-nouns is stressed, e.g. deiwàs instead of standard deĩwas, the latter being an innovation. In dialects the dative singular and the instrumental plural have the "ui"-diphthong instead of standard ai: deiwúi and deiwúis respectively. This is common for both Western and Eastern dialects and predate the original split.

Case	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Masculine	Neuter	Masculine	Neuter	Masculine	Neuter
Nominative	deĩwas	àzera	deĩwū	àzerai	deĩwai	azerā̃
Genitive	deĩwā	àzerā	deiwáu	azeráu	deiwū̃n	azerū̃n
Dative	deiwái	azerái	deiwamā̃	azeramā̃	deiwàmas	azeràmas
Accusative	deĩwun	àzerun	deĩwū	àzerai	deĩwōn	azerā̃
Instrumental	deĩwū	àzerū	deiwamā̃	azeramā̃	deiwáis	azeráis
Locative	deĩwai	àzerai	deiwáu	azeráu	deiwáišu	azeráišu
Vocative	deĩwe	àzera	deĩwū	àzerai	deiwaĩ	azerā̃

ā-stem nouns

The "ā"-stem nouns are feminine. An example of this class is rasā “dew”. The Western dialects have tone-2 in the M-type nouns, while the Eastern dialects keep the original tone-1 (Western rasā̃ Eastern rasā́). Tone-1 was analogically eliminated from the M-paradigm in most Western Carpathian dialects, being replaced by circumflex, thus being restricted to the AS-type exclusively.

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
	Feminine
Nominative	rasā́	ràsāi	ràsās
Genitive	rasā̃s	rasáu	rasū̃n
Dative	rasái	rasā́mā	rasā́mas
Accusative	ràsān	rasái	ràsānas
Instrumental	rasā́n	rasā́mā	rasámīs
Locative	rasái	rasáu	rasā́su
Vocative	ràsa	rasái	rasás

i-stem nouns

There are two subclasses: common "is"-stem (angilis “coal”), and neuter "i"-stem (mari “sea”). The "i"-stem class consists of a few words and is obsolete in most dialects, being replaced by either "a"-stem (maria) or "is"-stem (maris).

Case	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Common	Neuter	Common	Neuter	Common	Neuter
Nominative	angilìs	marì	ànglī	màrī	àngiliīs	màriī
Genitive	angiléis	maréis	angiliáu	mariáu	angiliū̃n	mariū̃n
Dative	àngilei	màrei	angilimā̃	marimā̃	angilìmas	marìmas
Accusative	àngilin	màrin	ànglī	màrī	àngilinis	màrī
Instrumental	angilimì	marimì	angilimā̃	marimā̃	angilìmīs	marìmīs
Locative	angiléi	maréi	angiliáu	mariáu	angilišù	marišù
Vocative	ànglei	màri	ànglī	màrī	àngiliīs	màriī