Létë/Declension Paradigms

Irregular declensions (or special), are underlined. Often nouns ending in a consonant, and are without a stem form, will contract the case suffix, or insert an -e- between the singular suffix and the noun, an -i- between the plural suffix and the noun, and a -u- for u-duals.

Those nouns that have a t or d in the word retain the suffix's original form, and precede it with a -u-. For example:

atan "lesser being":


 * Nom. atanu, Gen. atanur, Dat. atanunna, Loc. atanullo,


 * Abl. atanummë, All. atanussë, Inst. atanuva, Com. atanuo

Nouns on -a
Nouns on -a always have regular declensions.

We use alla "leaf" Note that nouns on -oa have comitative singular on -avo:

hroa "door" -> hravo

Nouns on -ë without i-stem
These nouns have regular declensions. It has plural on -ië, which replaces the final -ë.

We use nelpë "softness, comfort"

Nouns on -ë with i-stem
These nouns use -i in all cases instead of -ë except nominative singular and nominative plural, where they end in -ië. They have dual on -t. This is due to the fact that as the language evolved, its phonology developed so that no word could end on an -i. However, there are exceptions, as outlined below.

We use lingwë (lingwi-) "chair"

Nouns on -i
These are few and far between. Most pertain to the sky, or female organisms. These are anomalies in the language as usually it is illegal to end in an -i, surviving relics of a somewhat earlier language.

We use aiwi "air"

Nouns on -o without u-stem
These behave much the same as nouns on -a.

We use poro "reel"

Nouns on -o with u-stem
These use -u in all cases except nominative singular.

We use culo (culu-) "digit" Note that nouns such as these that end in -co or -go change to -qu and -gw respectively in certain plural cases. This happens for: nominative plural, with the ending -ië rather than the normal -n; genitive plural, with the ending -irin; essive plural, with the ending -ita; instrumental plural, with the ending -iva; comitative plural, with the ending -ion; and abessive plural, with the ending -irë. Here is a table with oco "beast" to help clarify:

2-letter nouns
Nouns in this category decline regularly as per the phonology. Note that monosyllabic words which end with a consonant retain the long vowel if they have one.

We use fé "the eye" Note that body parts that come in natural pairs, among other words, are an exceptional to the rule that no word may end on a diphthong, when it come to nominative dual case. Hence feu is allowed, and would mean "eyes". Plural would mean many "eyes".

Also, 2-letter nouns that are not body parts, nor contain a d or t, have nominative dual on -t as usual.

Nouns on -l
We use nenal "rapture, heaven's rending (more or less some great catastrophe)"

Nouns on -n
We use aman "a power"

Nouns on -r
We use lamar "shelter"

Nouns on -s
We use iris "hole"

Nouns on -t
We use talat "wall". Note that because all -t nouns have a t in them, they will always decline on u-dual.

m-stems
As discussed in phonlogy on the main page, m cannot end a word. As a result, it has changed to -n in the nominative, but declines in other cases on -m.

esten, estem- "value, worth" There are also words with stem on -ng which behave as above:


 * halan, halang- "area"

The allative is halandë and ablative is halammë.

c-stems
Some words originally ended in c but now end in t. When they decline, they do so on -c except for nominative singular, which is on -t. Note that all nouns with c-stems decline on u-dual.

quenet, quenec- "a clip"