Czech noun inflection Scala-like pseudocode

czech-noun-inflection.scala

/*
In Czech, there are various "templates" for noun inflection. (I am not completely sure if "template" is the correct term.) We divide the nouns by grammatical gender to manculines, feminines and neuters.

Masculines are divided to (grammaticaly) animate and (grammaticaly) inanimate. (Note that grammatical animateness may differ from the actual animateness. For example, "sněhulák" (snowman) and "umrlec" (dead man) are grammatically animate.)


Templates according to https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cesk%C3%A1_podstatn%C3%A1_jm%C3%A9na#Rod_mu.C5.BEsk.C3.BD_.C5.BEivotn.C3.BD :
masculine, animate:
	pán
	muž
	předseda
	hajný # inflected as an adjective "mladý"
	Jiří # inflected as an adjective "jarní"
	soudce # Seriously, because of accusative of plural!
masculine, inanimate:
	hrad
	les # very similar inflection to "hrad", they are usualy considered as only one template
	stroj
feminine:
	žena
	škola # very similar inflection to "žena", they are usualy considered as only one template
	růže
	píseň
	kost
neuter:
	město
	moře
	kuře
	stavení


Given a grammatical gender, you can determine the template by comparing endings of some cases of singular. For feminines and neuters, it is enough to compare nominative and genitive. For masculines, you also need to compare accusative.

If you don't know the grammatical gender, but you know some cases, comparing endings of singular nominativ, singular genitiv and possibly singular accusative covers most of the cases, but not all of them.

*/

/**
 * Given a Czech noun, returns a grammatical template as a String.
 * Some edge cases are not covered. These edge cases include (but are not limited to):
 * * Non-inflected words like "kupé", "filé" and "ragù". (Probably all of them are alien words.)
 * * Some alien words with "us" ending in nominative.
 * * Mixed inflection.
 * * Some special templates. (I've covered some of them, but not all.)
 * 
 * Note that the code is rather meant as pseudocode. I hope one can make it working just by denining the Noun class, which should be rather simple.
 * 
 */
def determineTemplate(noun: Noun) = noun.singular.nominative.ending match {
	case "" => // MA: pán, muž; MI: hrad, les, stroj; F: píseň, kost
		noun.singular.genitive.ending match {
			// F: píseň, kost
			case "a" => // MA-G: pána; MI-G: lesa
				noun.singular.accusative.ending match {
					case "a" => "pán" // MA-A: pána
					case "" => "les" // MI-A: lesa
				}
			case "e" => // MA-G: muže, MI-G: stroje
				noun.singular.accusative.ending match {
					case "e" => "muž" // MA-A: muže
					case "" => "stroj" // MI-A: stroj
				}
			case "u" => "hrad" // MI-G: hradu
			case "ě" => "píseň" // F-G: písně
		}
	case "a" => // MA: předseda; F: žena, škola
		// These templates are very very similar. Not sure why "chairman" is similar (in inflection) to "woman" :D
		noun.singular.locative.ending match {
			// Note that "žena" and "škola" are usualy considered as one template, since they don't differ in grammatical gender and they only slightly differ in inflection
			case "ě" => "žena" // F-L: ženě
			case "e" => "škola" // F-L: škole
			case "ovi" => "předseda" // MA-L: předsedovi
		}
	case "e" => // MA: soudce; F: růže; N: moře, kuře
		noun.singular.genitive.ending match {
			case "e" => // MA: soudce; F: růže; N: moře
				// The most tricky one if you don't know the grammatical gender. We can't distinguish these three just by comparing one case.
				noun.singular.accusative.ending match {
					case "e" => // MA-A: soudce; N-A: moře
						// Uarrgh, we can't clearly distinguish "soudce" (judge) and "moře" (sea) by singular cases! We have to use plural!
						noun.plural.nominative.ending match {
							case "i"|"ové" => "soudce"	// N-PLURAL-N: soudci, soudcové (both are correct)
							case "e" => "moře" // MA-PLURAL-N: moře
						}
					case "i" => "růže" // F-A: růži
				}
			case "ete"=> "kuře"
		}
	case "í" => // MA: Jiří; N: stavení
		noun.singular.genitive.ending match {
			case "ího" => "Jiří"
			case "í" => "stavení"
		}
	case "ý" => "hajný"
	case "o" => "město"
}

Thanks! Actually useful, as surprising as it may be.
I think "local" should be "lokat"? for Lokativ.

Well, in Czech, locative is typically called “Lokál”, like in https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lok%C3%A1l , which has confused me. I have fixed it.

Well, even more often, we just use numbers for cases and many people don't know the names, but that's another story. Those numbers are usually useful just in discussion with Czech/Slovak native speakers. So, Czech cases are:

1. nominative (nominativ)
2. genitive (genitiv)
3. dative (dativ)
4. acusative (akuzativ)
5. vocative (vokativ)
6. locative (lokál)
7. instrumental (instrumentál)

BTW, I sometimes tend to say “vokál” instead of “vokativ”. If you see the endings of the Czech variants, you probably won't be surprised.

Ah, thanks. I didn't know it was Lokál.
Yes, I remember the case numbering, and I learned each vzor separately.

Well, in Czech, it is usually “lokál” (no need to uppercase it, BTW). According to the wiki page, “lokativ” and “místník” is also correct, but I don't think those forms are used frequently. The name “lokativ” would be probably clear to those who know “lokál”. The name “místník” is something I seem to have never heard until know. While the name seems to be just a translation of Latin name to Czech, I believe I could have been confused by the name.

In the Scala pseudocode, I use English names of cases, so I have switched to “locative”.

BTW, I have created this after talking with some Russian classmate about complexity of Czech declension. I intended to show that it is not that complex. However, after writing this, I realized how complex noun declension in my native language is.

Note that the hidden complexity is in grammatical genders. Native speakers are typically aware of the gender of virtually any Czech word. If you know the gender, it is usually enough to match just suffixes of nominative and genitive. In some cases, you also need to match the accusative in order to distinguish between masculine aminate and masculine inanimate words.