Substantivy

Substantivy is a term used in certain language grammars to refer to the class of words that function as nouns in English, Czech, Slovak and related traditions. Substantivy denote entities such as people, places, things and ideas, and they typically serve as the heads of noun phrases. They can act as subjects, objects, or complements within clauses and are often inflected for grammatical categories such as number, gender and case. In languages that use the term substantivy, nouns usually agree with determiners and adjectives and determine the form of related words in the sentence.

Subtypes of substantivy commonly include common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns refer to general items (for example, city, idea), while proper nouns name specific entities (for example, Prague, Liberty). Many languages further classify nouns into concrete versus abstract, countable versus mass, and, in some systems, animate versus inanimate. These distinctions influence agreement patterns, article use, and declension.

Morphology and syntax of substantivy vary by language. Nouns may belong to one or more declension classes and display gender, with corresponding agreement in adjectives and verbs. Some languages retain rich noun inflection for case and number, while others rely more on word order or articles to express grammatical relations. Noun phrases are typically headed by a substantiv, with determiners and modifiers forming a complete NP.

Historically, substantiva derives from Latin substantivum meaning “substantive.” In English-language grammar, the term noun is more common, but substantivy remains in use in certain European grammars to classify the nominal word class. See also: noun, noun phrase, declension, grammar.