Macedonian Noun Templates

I don't really understand which "-e" and "-o" endings you are referring to. Are you talking about the feminine vocative forms? In that case, it's not about the last consonant being soft or hard. The rule is that feminine "-a" nouns have a vocative form in "-o", unless they end in "-ка" or "-ица" (as suffixes) and contain three or more syllables, in which case they have a vocative form in "-e". If you can make Lua work with that, all right, but otherwise, I'm fine with just dealing with this manually (i.e. choosing the "-o" vs. "-e" vocative template for each feminine "-a" noun).

By the way, the Macedonian vocative forms don't really follow the same rules as other Slavic languages. For example, in BCS, for masculine nouns, the ending is "-u" if the final consonant is palatal or "-e" if it's hard. In Macedonian, it's somewhat random and most masculine nouns simply have "-у" whereas the ones that do have "-e" can very often have "-у" too.

Yes, the table is somewhat incomplete. "море" does indeed become "мориња", but "јајце" becomes "јајца" (although "јајциња" is sometimes heard too). Furthermore, all neuter "-e" nouns that end in "-ие" "-ње" (the gerund suffix), or "-је" (the collective suffix) have plurals in "-a". My table is also incomplete in that it doesn't include anything for irregular nouns such as "камен", "рака", "нога", "дете" or "око". Also, it doesn't account for the intrusive "j" that appears and disappears (I believe you understand under what circumstances this happens), e.g. "боја" > "бои" (loss) and "искушение" > "искушенија" (appearance).

I see, so it's not really the same at all. In that case I'll just make separate templates then. Which is more common, the -е/иња type or the -е/а type?

Are there any nouns which have a gender that does not match what you would expect from the last consonant? Slovene has some masculine nouns ending in -o and -a, I believe Russian does as well.

The "-e" > "-иња" type is more common than the "-e" > "-a" type, I believe.

Yes, there are nouns whose gender doesn't match what you would expect from the last consonant, such as the feminine nouns ending in a consonant that I have represented in my table. There are indeed masculine nouns in "-o" and "-a" as well. The ones in "-o" are problematic, because in the singular, they take the neuter suffixes (e.g. "татко" > "таткото", "татконо", etc.) whereas in the plural, they have the "-oвци" suffix (e.g. "татко" > "татковци", "татковците", etc.). The ones in "-a", however, can simply use the template for regular feminine "-a" nouns.

That's a bit unexpected. Etymologically, the definite article is a separate word, so just like you have in Spanish la mano (feminine word that looks masculine), I would have expected that feminine or neuter-looking words would still take the masculine definite article. But I guess that the Macedonian articles are no longer "felt" as separate words with their own gender anymore, but simply endings that must match the noun in some kind of pattern.

I think for these exceptional nouns we would need separate templates, because of the irregularities you mentioned.

I've created some templates in Category:Macedonian noun inflection-table templates. I also renamed the old {{mk-infl}} to {{mk-decl-noun-manual}}. It's probably best not to use that template unless it's really needed. I think this should cover most nouns for now?

Yes, the article matches the noun's final vowel rather than the gender or number. Thus, "луѓе", which is plural, takes neuter singular suffixes. If you think we need separate templates, fine.

Anyway, I don't know how to use the masculine noun template. When I put the singular stem as the first parameter, the vocative as the second and the plural stem as the third, only the first parameter is used everywhere, so the template produces only wrong tables, as first of all, no masculine noun ending in a consonant has a vocative form identical to the nominative, and second of all, only about a third of masculine nouns simply add "-и" to the singular stem to form the plural. The remaining involve elision, palatalization or the suffix "-ови" and "-еви". That's why for masculine nouns, I'd need to enter three different things. Could you explain to me how to this? Also, have you accounted for the feminine nouns with the "-е" vocative within the code of the template for those with the "-o" vocative?