Enigentian grammar
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A summary of Enigentian grammar
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 3 Aug 2023, 11:47.
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1. Enigentian grammar
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This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
00Number
The majority of nouns in Enigentian have three numbers, singular, dual and plural; ileamut ileåmut "person", ileamat ileåmåt "two people", ileamuret ileåmuret "people". There are some nouns, however, considered uncountable, which only have a singular form: nemvat nemvåt "blood". These have a history going back to
Proto-Athru-Kherzomian, so their "uncountability" may not reflect the modern meaning (ceita keitå, "reason, cause", uncountable – from PAK *qəwuto, "view").00Endings in the base forms
All countable nouns have a special ending in their basic (singular nominative) form, shared by both classes – -ut -ut; when declining, this ending gets removed from the stem, to which the appropriate ending is added. This is different from uncountable nouns, which do not have an ending, and whose stem is the base form.
Similarly, many proper nouns have an ending -im -im, which also gets removed when declining or when the name gets loaned into a different language, such as English Paykiak from Vaiciacim Våikiåkim (pronounced /vaɪ̯kiɑkim/). Not all proper nouns have this ending, though (Anxu Ånhu, name of a god; "Ahnkhou" in English)
00Class
All countable enigentian nouns are also divided into two categories – hard and soft. Rarely, they are referred to as masculine and feminine respectively, since in northern Athru-Kherzomian languages they mostly function similarly to masculine/feminine genders, and the classes of Proto-Athru-Kherzomian are also called that by linguists, but the classes are nowadays usually considered simply two types of declension.
When it comes to loan words, most speakers can generally agree on which class to asign to the word; it seems words with phonemes like /r, u, θ, ɑ, g, v/ are considered hard (English "photo" loaned as a hard noun vuata·ut vuåtåut), while the others are considered soft. There are, however, many loan words that do not follow this rule.
Uncountable nouns also have two categories, but these are based only on whether the word ends in a vowel or a consonant; they do, however, correspond somewhat with soft (vowel stem) and hard (consonant stem) classes.
00Case and declensions
All nouns in Enigentian have seven cases: nominative (subject of a verb), accusative (object of a verb), genitive ("of"), lative (towards), ablative (away from), abessive (without), and instrumental (using, with, alongside). The abessive is the only case which is not directly inherited from PAK. Instead, it has been created in Ververian by merging the noun with the adposition xam håm "without", which was likely *hom /hɔm/ in Ververian. The language's free word order allowed adpositions to appear both before and after the word they modified, which in turn allowed *hom to get attached to the noun in the accusative case, becoming a regular suffix.
In older enigentian grammar books, the order of the cases differs with each publisher, but nowadays, they tend to be ordered the same way they are in this article.
In the following tables, all the noun categories and their forms in each case are shown.
Soft nouns, with caiut kåiut "arm" as an example:
| Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | caiut | caie | caiutxe |
| Accusative | cai | caie | caiua |
| Genitive | caiem | caiem | caiutxem |
| Lative | caiul | caiel | caiule |
| Ablative | caiux | caiex | caiulux |
| Abessive | caiam | caiem | caiuam |
| Instrumental | caiu | caia | caiau |
Hard nouns, with cuxut kuhut "home" as an example:
| Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | cuxut | cuxat | cuxuret |
| Accusative | cuxu | cuxa | cuxur |
| Genitive | cuxutxem | cuxatxem | cuxuxem |
| Lative | cuxur | cuxir | cuxura |
| Ablative | cuxux | cuxix | cuxucex |
| Abessive | cuxum | cuxam | cuxuram |
| Instrumental | cux | cuxu | cuxura |
Uncountable nouns ending in a vowel, with maici måiki "food" as an example (note the abessive form clearly showing "-xam"):
| Case | Singular |
|---|---|
| Nominative | maici |
| Accusative | maici |
| Genitive | maicitxem |
| Lative | maicilu |
| Ablative | maicitxux |
| Abessive | maicixam |
| Instrumental | maicitxu |
Uncountable nouns ending in a consonant, with nemvat nemvåt "blood" as an example (again, note the abessive form, where -xam is visible, even though the "x" is a part of the "tx" digraph):
| Case | Singular |
|---|---|
| Nominative | nemvat |
| Accusative | nemvat |
| Genitive | nemvatum |
| Lative | nemvatur |
| Ablative | nemvatux |
| Abessive | nemvatxam |
| Instrumental | nemvatu |
00Notes about the usage of cases
The nominative is, besides the subject of a verb, also used in relative clauses, as Enigentian does not use reflexive pronouns in this context. As an example, take the sentence
| I | spoke | with | the man who | was going | to the house |
| Ta | enigica | min | xautut | mecucevir | vicarur |
| .1SFirst person singular (person) speaker, signer, etc.; I.NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument | speak.1SFirst person singular (person) speaker, signer, etc.; I.INDIndicative mood (mood) a common form of realis.PASTPast tense (tense) action occurred before moment of speech.PERFPerfect (aspect/tense) have verb-ed | with | man.SGSingular (number) one countable entity.NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument | walk.3SThird person singular (person) neither speaker nor addressee.PASTPast tense (tense) action occurred before moment of speech.PERFPerfect (aspect/tense) have verb-ed | home.SGSingular (number) one countable entity.LATLative (case) movement, towards |
| I | spoke | with | man | walked | to home |
| I | spoke | with | a man |
| Ta | enigica | min | xautu |
| .1SFirst person singular (person) speaker, signer, etc.; I.NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument | speak.1SFirst person singular (person) speaker, signer, etc.; I.INDIndicative mood (mood) a common form of realis.PASTPast tense (tense) action occurred before moment of speech.PERFPerfect (aspect/tense) have verb-ed | with | man.SGSingular (number) one countable entity.ACCAccusative (case) TRANS direct object; patient |
| I | spoke | with | man |
The genitive case is used for possessivity (xaututxem vicarut "man's house"), but there is also an adposition cai kåi "of"; in the formal language, cai is used together with the genitive to show inalienable possession (etuut cai xaututxem "man's hand"), whereas using only the genitive shows alienable possession. This distinction is, however, slowly stopping to be productive, so many people in casual speech ommit cai and only use the genitive (xaututxem etuut "man's hand").
The instrumental case is used not only for "with" or "using", but also in the sense of "along" or "around", so that curaiul vicar means "the grass around the house".
The lative case can also be used as a dative case, (Iramaica vicar xautur "I gave the house to a man"), with the ablative sometimes analysed as the opposite (Tivca vicar xautux "I got the house from a man").
00Agreement and declensions
Unlike nouns, adjectives are not sorted unto soft or hard. Instead, an adjective can be both, based on the class of the noun they are modifying. In the following two tables, the adjective meitxu meithu "happy" is declined first as if it were modyfing a soft noun, and in the second table as if it were modifying a hard noun. Notice that the accusative and abessive forms are identical, proving that the abessive case used to be a construction of a noun in the accusative + postposition "without", which later became a suffix; in casual speech, the suffix is sometimes added to the adjective as well, though in formal Classical Enigentian that is considered wrong.
| Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | meitxu | meitxe | meua |
| Accusative | meit | meitxe | meitxua |
| Genitive | meitxem | meitxem | meitxem |
| Lative | meitxul | meitxel | meitxul |
| Ablative | meitxux | meitxex | meitxux |
| Abessive | meit | meitxe | meitxua |
| Instrumental | meitxu | meitxu | meitxau |
| Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | meitxu | meitxua | meitxur |
| Accusative | meit | meitxa | meitxur |
| Genitive | meitxem | meitxem | meitxem |
| Lative | meitxur | meitxer | meitxur |
| Ablative | meitxux | meitxex | meitxex |
| Abessive | meit | meitxe | meitxur |
| Instrumental | meitxu | meitxu | meitxua |
00Comparisons
The compsasdsgberueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueu
Personal pronouns in Enigentian are more complex than in most other Athru-Kherzomian languages. In PrAK, pronouns, just like nouns, adjectives and verbs, used to have three numbers – singular, dual and plural. In Ververian, though, the dual shifted to paucal and later dissapeared completely in most child languages. This process is finished in Low Enigentian dialects (the common language), where the dual is not productive anymore, but in Classical Enigentian, the dual in pronouns (as well as verbs) was either turned into paucal or inclusive in first person, into a new plural in the second person, or into plural animate and paucal inanimate in the third person. This is shown in the following table:
| Case | I | you sg. | they sg. | X | we few / we, not you | you pl. | they pl. / "it" pauc. | X | we all / we and you | you hppl. "all of you" | they hppl. "they all" / "it" pl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ta | ne | i | atacu | anecu | ite | tacu | nicu | itue | ||
| Accusative | ute | un | ue | atace | aneac | aut | atic | anexic | aitu | ||
| Genitive | tam | neam | iam | aticem | anecem | itaem | ticem | necem | itiam | ||
| Lative | tul | nel | il | atilce | anace | itial | tulce | nelce | ituel | ||
| Ablative | tauc | neac | iec | aticuc | anecuc | itiec | ticiluc | neicuc | ituec | ||
| Abessive | tuam | neam | iam | atam | aniam | itam | tauam | niam | ituam | ||
| Instrumental | tai | nu | u | atace | anece | iteu | taice | nuice | itueu |
For clarity, here are some sentences with various pronouns:
| Enigentian | Subject pronoun | Common reading | Second reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ta txiveir ue. | .1First person (person) speaker, signer, etc; I.SGSingular (number) one countable entity | I understand it. | – |
| Atacu txivei ue. | .1First person (person) speaker, signer, etc; I.PLPlural (number) more than one/few.INCLInclusive (person) speaker and listener | We few understand it. | We understand it, but you [the listener] do not. |
| Tacu txiveirx ue. | 1First person (person) speaker, signer, etc; I.PLPlural (number) more than one/few.EXCLExclusive (person) speaker's group, not listener | We all understand it. | We understand it and so do you [the listener]. |
| Ne txiveire ue. | .2Second person (person) addressee (you).SGSingular (number) one countable entity | You [singular] understand it. | |
| Anecu txiveixe ue. | 2Second person (person) addressee (you).PLPlural (number) more than one/few | You [plural] understand it. | |
| Nicu txiveirec ue. | .2Second person (person) addressee (you).HPPHyperplural (number) very many | You all [everyone] understand it. | |
| I txiveir ue. | .3Third person (person) neither speaker nor addressee.SGSingular (number) one countable entity | They [singular] understand it | |
| Ite txivei ue. | .3Third person (person) neither speaker nor addressee.PLPlural (number) more than one/few.ANIMUnknown code / .3Third person (person) neither speaker nor addressee.PAUPaucal (number) a few, some.INInanimate (gender/class) for non-living things | They [plural, animate = people etc] understand it. | They few [paucal; inanimate – things] understand it. |
| Itue txiveirx ue. | .3Third person (person) neither speaker nor addressee.HPPHyperplural (number) very many.ANIMUnknown code / .3Third person (person) neither speaker nor addressee.PLPlural (number) more than one/few.INInanimate (gender/class) for non-living things | They all [animate; hyperplural] understand it. | They [plural, inanimate] understand it. |
Enigentian is, like other Athru-Kherzomian languages, base-8, meaning that it has unique names for numbers one through eight and numbers larger are compounded. This is also reflected in the numerals, as the value of eight is written as "10" 10. In the following lists, words for numbers, their values in arab numerals and the way they are written both in arab numerals and in inemre are shown:
0000exa (1; 1 1)
0000ca (2; 2 2)
0000txima (3; 3 3)
0000tua (4; 4 4)
0000rexa (5; 5 5)
0000ela (6; 6 6)
0000mala (7; 7 7)
0000nac (8; 10 10)
Numbers from nine through fifteen are created by the suffix -vac -våk "-teen"
0000evac (9; 11 11)
0000cevac (10; 12 12)
0000tximac (11; 13 13)
0000tuvac (12; 14 14)
0000rexvac (13; 15 15)
0000elvac (14; 16 16)
0000malvac (15; 17 17)
The "tens" are then made with the suffix -utxut -uthut "-ty"
0000cevetxut (16; 20 20)
0000tximutxut (24; 30 30)
0000tuvutxut (32; 40 40)
0000rexvutxut (40; 50 50)
0000elvutxut (48; 60 60)
0000malvutxut (56; 70 70)
Hundreds have the suffix -acan -åkån "hundred"
0000exacan (64; 100 100)
0000cacan (128; 200 200)
0000tximacan (192; 300 300)
0000tuacan (256; 400 400)
0000rexacan (320; 500 500)
0000elacan (384; 600 600)
0000malacan (448; 700 700)
00Persons
00Number and inclusivness
00Tense, mood and aspect
00Irregular verbs
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