Nouns

As in other Romance languages, all nouns in Furlan are either masculine or feminine in gender.

Most feminine nouns end in -e. (Remember, this final -e is pronounced.)

t�ule	table
cjase	house
lune	moon
scuele	school

Some feminine nouns, however, end in a consonant, including those ending in -zion.

man	hand
lezion	lesson

Most masculine nouns end either in a consonant or in -i.

cjan	dog
gjat	cat
fradi	brother
libri	book

A few masucline nouns end in -e, including sisteme (system) and probleme (problem). However, because most masculine nouns end in a consonant, it is not uncommon to find the forms sist�m and probl�m instead (though this is more likely to occur in print than in speech).

There are also a number of masculine nouns which have been borrowed intact from Italian, that is, with a final -o, like treno (train). Many of these words have been fully absorbed into the language, even forming their plurals with the regular Friulian �+s rather than the Italian -i. Still, there are some purists, including influential people in Furlan publishing, who frown on such words, insisting that the "proper" Furlan terms should be without the final -o. So despite the fact that you almost always hear treno, chances are good that if you see the word in print it'll be as tren. (I understand that Furlan is under pressures all its own, but if pizza and piano could become regular English words, one would think that treno should have no problem being accepted as Furlan.)

Plural forms of Nouns

To form the plural of nouns ending in -e, whether feminine or masculine, change the final -e to -is.

t�ule, t�ulis	table, tables
cjase, cjasis	house, houses
lune, lunis	moon, moons
scuele, scuelis	school, schools
sisteme, sistemis	system, systems

To form the plural of almost all other nouns, simply add +s. Note: this final s is always pronounced as a soft s, that is, like the s of the English word cats, and never with the hard z-sound of the s in dogs.

man, mans	hand, hands
lezion, lezions	lesson, lessons
cjan, cjans	dog, dogs
gjat, gjats	cat, cats
fradi, fradis	brother, brothers
libri, libris	book, books
treno, trenos	train, trains
bra�, bra�s	arm, arms
guant, guants	glove, gloves

IMPORTANT: In some Furlan dialects there are many words whose final consonant becomes silent when the +s is added. These words include just about all those whose singular form ends in -t. The plural of gjat, for example, is written as gjats, but is pronounced in much of Friuli as though it were gjas, and that of plat (dish), though written as plats, is often pronounced as plas. Other words in this category include cl�f (key) and clap (stone), whose plural forms, cl�fs and claps, are often pronounced with a silent f and p, respectively (cl�s, clas), so that the longer a in the former is all that distinguishes it from the latter. Note also that a final -�, which is pronounced either as "-s" or as the English "-ch", is pluralized in writing as -�s, regardless of whether the pluralized pronunciation is "-s" or "-ts" (it varies according to dialect); an example is bra� / bra�s.

Exceptions:

Masculine nouns ending in -l or -li form their plurals by substituting i for the l or the li.

cjav�l, cjav�i	horse, horses
f�l, f�i	string, strings
cjapi�l, cjapi�i	hat, hats
cjaveli, cjav�i	hair, hairs
voli, voi	eye, eyes
zenoli, zen�i	knee, knees

Feminine nouns ending in l are pluralized regularly.

piel, piels	skin, skins
val, vals	valley, valleys

Some masculine nouns which end in t are pluralized by changing the t to cj.

dint, dincj	tooth, teeth
dut, ducj	all (of one thing), all (of several things)

Nouns ending in s do not change spelling when pluralized (even though some speakers may pronounce the plural -s differently from the singular -s).

vues	bone, bones
pes	fish (singular or plural)
m�s	month, months

The plural of an (year) has several forms depending on dialect, including ain, ains, agn and agns. Regardless of pronunciation, the written form is agns.



Adjectives

Most adjectives in Friulian have four forms which correspond to the four possible combinations of gender and number. The following chart gives the forms for the Furl�n word for "ugly":

	Singular	Plural
Masucline	brut	bruts
Feminine	brute	brutis

Note that an adjective is always stressed on the same vowel, regardless of gender or number (in the examples above the u is stressed in all four forms).

To form the plural of any singular adjective, follow the same rules that apply to the pluralization of nouns:

Singular	Plural
vuarp	vuarps	blind (m.)
cjalde	cjaldis	hot (f.)
biel	biei	beautiful (m.)
natur�l	natu�ls	natural (f.)
grant	grancj	large, great (m.)
pi�s	pi�s	worse (m.)

What is not so straightforward, however, is the relationship between the masculine and feminine forms of an adjective; given a masculine singular form, the corresponding feminine form is not always obvious.

In many cases the feminine and masculine forms are the same except for a final -e on the feminine form:

Masculine	Feminine
biel	biele	beautiful
rot	rote	broken
fin	fine	thin
strac	strache	tired

(in the final example the h is added to preserve the "k" sound of the c)

The final -e in the feminine can appear instead of a final -i in the masculine, or in addition to it:

Masculine	Feminine
nestri	nestre	our
neri	nere	black
salvadi	salvadie	wild
lami	lamie	lacking salt, insipid

Often the masculine and femine forms also differ in the last consonant:

- if the consonant is voiced in the feminine form, the corresponding unvoiced consonant may appear in the masculine, often with the lengthening of the preceding vowel:

Feminine	Masculine
grande	grant	great, large
vuarbe	vuarp	blind
brave	br�f	good
antighe	ant�c	ancient
pelose	pel�s	hairy

(note in the last example that the "s" in the feminine is sounded like the English "z", since it comes between two vowels)

Into this category fall most adjectives derived from the past participle of verbs:

Feminine	Masculine
sporcjade	sporcj�t	dirtied
finide	fin�t	finished
savude	sav�t	known

- the masculine form may have a longer vowel even when the final consonant is the same as that of the feminine form:

Feminine	Masculine
zale	z�l	yellow
bessole	bess�l	alone

- sometimes the two corresponding forms will end in a -c in the masculine and a "prepalatal" consonant in the feminine; in some words this prepalatal consonant is voiced (gj), while in others it is not (cj):

Masculine	Feminine
blanc	blancje	white
sporc	sporcje	dirty
lunc	lungje	long
larc	largje	wide

In some cases the feminine and masculine forms differ considerably:

Masculine	Feminine
prin	prime	first
f�r	ferme	still, unmoving
bon	buine	good (sing.)
bogns	buinis	good (pl.)

There are also many adjectives whose masculine and feminine forms do not differ at all in the singular; in such cases it is important to remember that the rules for forming plurals may differ depending on gender, and so even when the masculine and feminine singular forms are the same, the plural forms may in fact be different:

	singular	plural
masculine	natur�l	natur�i
feminine	natur�l	natur�ls

The important point to remember in forming the plural of an adjective is that your point of departure must be the singular form. In other words, you cannot easily find the feminine plural form if all you know is the masculine singular. Once you have the proper singular form, finding the plural should be straightforward.

	singular	plural
masc.	biel	biei
fem.	biele	bielis

neri (black)

masc.	neri	neris
fem.	nere	neris

z�l (yellow)

masc.	z�l	z�i
fem.	zale	zalis

grant (large, great)

masc.	grant	grancj
fem.	grande	grandis

An important exception is the plural form of the masculine adjective bon (good): bogns, which is analogous to agns, the plural of an (year).


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