Nouns and Adjectives (or the lack thereof): view article

Nouns have one of three genders or noun classes, either Common, Abstract/Immaterial or Wilderness. Common includes everything related to daily life in a village or city, humans, and things made by humans. Abstract/Immaterial is largely self-explaining, used for ideas and concepts, intangible as well as unknown things or sometimes for generic terms. Wilderness includes everything that has to do, or can be found with the jungle, the ocean or anything else seen as "wild". This includes animals, plants as well as some inanimate items. It can also be used in a more poetic way, for example for the subconscious, the "wild, untamed" part of the mind.

Gender is mostly predictable if you either know the meaning of a word or the spelling of it, however not all words ending in -i are of the "abstract" gender, nor are all nouns of that gender ending in -i, and the same is true for the other two classes.

Gender	Common	Abstract (-i)	Wilderness (-u)
Noun	dova (tree)	dovi (tower, height)	dovu (jungle tree)

Nouns also decline for three cases, with some exceptions. As a rule, names of languages (like tahiva a net, 'Coastal Jutean') don't decline, and the same is true for most nouns forming a temporal adverbial phrase, like in vuni 'at the beginning', though this is not followed by all speakers and has been a topic of contention.

The direct case more or less equals the absolutive or nominative (depending on the trigger used), where as indirect and oblique roughly correspond with the direct and indirect object respectively, however they can also have other functions. Most notably, words answering the question "where to?" need the indirect case, whereas the oblique one is used for inalienable possession, relationship or authorship.

If the declined word has more than five syllables because of the case ending, the ending can become a particle directly following the noun, iti for the indirect case and ede for the oblique case.

Case	Direct	Indirect	Oblique
ending in consonant	dovan (forest)	dovaniti	dovanede
ending in vowel	dova (tree)	dovati	dovade

[edit] [top]Adjectives

Overview
Adjectives are not a distinct word class in Jutean, and instead either adjectival nouns or stative verbs.

The only difference between adjectival nouns and regular noun is that they generally don't decline, so for example dovi a haad is 'big tower', or dovi a hohi 'new tower'.

To intensify them, haad (here: 'much') is inserted after the noun in question, so hohi haad would translate to 'very new' (literally 'newness much'). Rarely a haada is used instead, which would translate to 'of biggerness'. Exceptions to this are 'very big', 'very good', and 'very bad', where haada, ukea and dohaa would be used instead.

Stative verbs, e.g. ildeso ('be sure/be strict') are always unergative and work identical to other unergative verbs.

Comparative
Comparative of an (adjectival) noun is formed by adding a haada 'of biggerness' (or a ilhaada 'of smallerness' when the things a noun is compared to is smaller in degree or quality), and either hehe 'still, even' to the end of the sentence, or adding a construction with ilehe 'unlike, than'.

No ta a nihaa a haada ilehe me na ma. 'I am older than you'
be 1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I of oldness of biggerness unlike OBLOblique (argument)
indirect or demoted object 2SSecond person singular (person)
addressee (you) OBLOblique (argument)
indirect or demoted object (literally 'I am of oldness of biggerness than you')

The noun following ilehe has to be in the oblique case, as with most adpositions.

Haad 'big', uke 'good' and dohaa 'bad' are the exceptions again, using a haada, a ukea or a dohaa.

Copular verbs use comparative in the same way, for example:

No ji a dovi a haada hehe. 'This is higher [still].'
be this.ABSTAbstract (gender/class)
abstract, intangible, idea of highness of biggerness still

Stative verbs use the adverb haade to form a comparative, and a comparing noun phrase is introduced again with ilehe as in the following:

Ildeso fal haade ilehe me fa ma. 'They are stricter/surer [of it] than us'
be_strict 3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.COLCollective (number)
'group or mass entity' more unlike OBLOblique (argument)
indirect or demoted object 1First person (person)
speaker, signer, etc; I.COLCollective (number)
'group or mass entity' OBLOblique (argument)
indirect or demoted object

Superlative
The superlative is constructed with a haadat, 'of biggestness' after it, as in:

Nuno ta an mihonode a nihaa a haadat. 'I live in the oldest house.'
dwell 1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I in.CCommon gender (gender/class)
common gender house-OBLOblique (argument)
indirect or demoted object of oldness of biggestness (literally 'I live in the house of oldness of biggestness')

The same three nouns (haad, uke, dohaa) are the exceptions here too, using a haadat, a ukeat and a doat for the superlative.

With copular verbs the superlative is again used the same way, for example:

No ji a dovi a haadat. 'This is the highest [one/thing].'
be this.ABSTAbstract (gender/class)
abstract, intangible, idea of highness of biggestness.

With stative verbs, haadate 'most' is used for the superlative, for example:

Ildeso fal haadate. 'They are [the] strictest [about it]/surest [about it]'
be_strict 3Third person (person)
neither speaker nor addressee.COLCollective (number)
'group or mass entity' most.ADVAdverbial
e.g. English '-ly'

Archetypive / 'Model X' constructions
The 'archetypive', also referred to as a 'Model X' construction is a special, sparsely used construction reserved to augment the superlative further, when something or someone is seen as the very embodiment of a quality or an abstract thing, or the very model or archetype of something or someone.

To make one, a regular adjectival noun is declined like a regular noun, giving for example:

No la saini a nesani. 'They are a person of knowledge' (=knowledgeable person, regular construction)
No la saini a nesanide. 'They are a/the person of the knowledge, a knowledge-person' (=a perfect, archetypical example of a knowledgeable person, the very embodiment of knowledge)

However, this is not used in the humble (formal) register, which uses the otherwise unused oho 'to have'.

Oho la nesani. 'They have knowledge'
have.humble 3SThird person singular (person)
neither speaker nor addressee knowledge

This carries with it both a kind of polite understatement, as well confers the person in question agency, which is seen as a highly respectful way of speaking.

✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article

Comments