Lindjerblau/Nouns

Nouns in the Lindjerblau, as in most dialects of the Almsaundean language, are inflected for 2 numbers, (singular and plural), 8 cases (ergative, accusative, dative, prepositional, postpositional, genitive, nominative and vocative) and 5 genders (man, women, boy, girl and neuter).

= History = More numbers, cases and genders existed in the Ancient and Old Almsaundean language, though they collapsed in most modern dialects. Evidence of the collapsed declinations can still be be found in nouns however. The dual, trial and quadrual numbers can be found as endings for diminutives and pejoratives, and words collapsed into the existing 5 genders from the 10th, 11th and 12th genders are riddled with silent consonants. Although these silent consonants reflect more prevalently what has been lost from certain verbs than from nouns, they still convey grammatical phenomenons and pronunciations that have become obsolete over time. Some postpositions, too, were developed from endings of the cases they once represented.

In comparison to the Ancient and Old language:
 * Of the 5 numbers that existed, singular, dual, trial, quadrual and plural, only 2, singular and plural, remain
 * Of the 26 'cases that existed; ergative, accusative, dative, genitive, nominative, vocative, inessive, locative, lative, ablative, sociative, benefactive, (antessive, instrumental, proximative, adessive, elative, apudessive, intrative, sublative, superessive, terminative, aversive, abessive, postessive, postelative), those in bold print remain entirely, those in italics had similar endings and collapsed into the prepositional case, and those in paretheses had endings that didn't change for any of the 12 genders and collapsed into the postpositional case, leaving 8 modern cases
 * Of the 12 genders that existed, only the first 5 remain

It is thus said that between Old Almsaundean and Modern Almsaundean, only one third of the noun declensions survived.

= Grammar = All nouns in the Almsaundean language are capitalized.

= Case = Nouns decline into 8 (or 7) different cases depending on their function in the sentence. The 8 cases are the ergative, accusative, dative, preopositional, postpositional, genitive, nominative and vocative cases. Because the nominative and vocative cases share the same declensions, they are often thrown into a single case.

Ergative Case
As a dialect of a tripartite language, Lindjerblau uses a different case for the subject of a transitive verb, subject of an intransitive verb, and the object of a transitive verb. The ergative case marks the subject of a transitive verb, or a verb that can take an object (or direct object).


 * Pfuh Boi j git. (The boy is going.)
 * Pfuh Boi pfa Taunna j git. (The boy is going to town.)

Some verbs can take the ergative or the nominative (intransitive) with variations in meaning.


 * Pfi Kniwi art pfuh Paurjer. (Knowledge is power.)
 * Pfers Kniwer art. (Knowledge is. / Such knowledge does, in fact, exist.)

The ergative is the dictionary form of the noun.

Accusative Case
The accusative case marks the direct object of a verb.


 * Schij Kitja j hivvsse. (She has a kitten.)
 * Pfë itschesse j Breido. (They're eating (a piece of) bread.)

The verb bijne, to be, the direct object may take either the ergative case or the accusative. The meaning of a double-ergative sentence of these is usually left up to syntax, with the noun at the head of the sentence translating semantically as the subject and the noun after it translating as the object. The accusative is used to avoid ambiguation in these cases.

"Swer ist Firsod" (A square is a rectangle) could be interpreted as "A rectangle is a square" if arranged as "Firsod ist Swer" since both nouns are masculin and singular and would take "ist". While the first sentence is true, the second isn't, and the accusative should be used to avoid this ambiguity; "Swer ist Firsodo," or "Firsodo ist Swer" are preferred.

Dative Case
The dative case marks the indirect object of a ditransitive verb.


 * Hiho pfën Gerlën j govvt. (He's giving it to the girl.)
 * Al pfa Mitseileima pfën Taunnën j gijadszch. (They're going to the deli in town. (With the nuance that they're not already in town.))

Prepositional Case
The prepositional case marks the object of one of the 8 prepositions; tuh (to), on (in), it (at), frem (from), ev (of), ebaut (about), fir (for) and rjopf (with). Prepositions contract with articles and possessive pronouns, dropping their final consonants and adding -m for singular and -s for plural nouns.


 * Ąjje beje fim Bircedem. (I bought something for your/(my/his/her/the/no/that/this/etc.) birthday.)

Because articles and possessive pronouns contract with prepositions, adjectives describing nouns in the prepositional case can not be held together as comments. They are free to roam the sentence individually and must take case endings.


 * Berjatzes schij begildes ß gisse rjos Freindes pfan Mwëzokschaftan. (She always goes to concerts with her older, more mature friends.)

Postpositional Case
The postpositional case marks the object of a postposition. Postpositions stand alone, alike particles, and never form compounds with other words.


 * Heinel Brepferel seljan, hipfo j hivvt sokso. (He has six of them according to his brother.)
 * Ą hivve j gijan aut, em Vitbim, weinel Vitbil autev. (I'm leaving with or without your permission.)

Genitive Case
The genitive case marks the possessive form of a noun. The genitive phrase is usually at the tail of the noun it governs.


 * Ą pfo Senno meins Fapfers amme. (I am my father's son.)
 * Pfe Hıllefte pfes Hauschefts kiwertettesse es temarligriennes Tritsches. (The country's valleys are covered with evergreen forests.)

An alternative possibility is to combine the genitive with the noun it governs by attaching it at the head of the noun. When this is done, adjectives and articles that modify the genitive noun are dropped to avoid arbitrarily long compounds. Compounds maintain the gender of the noun at the tail.


 * Ą pfo Meinsfapferssenno amme. (I am my father's son.)
 * Pfe Hauscheftshıllefte kiwertettesse es temarligriennes Tritsches. (The country's valleys are covered with evergreen forests.)

Nominative Case
The nominative case marks the subject of an intransitive verb. It shares case endings with the vocative case.


 * Pfismal Gërle j sliepsse. (The little girl is sleeping.)

Some verbs may use the nominative or the ergative (transitive) case with different nuances in meaning. For example, "sliepäne," as a transitive verb, means "to put to sleep," as in the sentence "Scheinasmal Gerla pfij Wom j sliepsse," (The woman is putting her small daughter to sleep.)

Vocative Case
The vocative case marks the function of a noun in disjunction with the verb, prepositions and postpositions. It's mostly used in exclamatory phrases but can also be used as single word answers to questions. Its endings are shared with the nominative case.


 * Tekkekker! (Thief!)
 * Rjeirem laszchst wë weino Schuo? Taun.  (Where did you lose your shoe?  Town.  (Alternatively, om Taunnem, in town, could be used.))
 * Rjuhïn guvvet pfë pfo Buekko? Aj.  (To whom did they give the book?  I.  (Alternatively, mïn, to me, could be used.))

Typically, word order determines the stress on the important words of the sentence, but sometimes a noun or pronoun can be repeated in the vocative case at the beginning or end of the phrase to add extra emphasis.


 * Gøvv ehon, hij. (Give it to him.  (With emphasis on "give" and "to him."))
 * Wej, ąwa levve. (I love you.  (With emphasis on "I" and "you."))
 * Taunna schij j gisse pfa, Taun. (She's going to town.  (With special emphasis on "town".))

= Gender = The 5 genders include the Man or 1st Gender, the Woman or 2nd Gender, the Boi or 3rd Gender, The Girl or 4th Gender and the Neuter or 5th Gender. With the exception of the Neuter Gender, the genders are named after their model noun. When they are compared to one another, the genders are sometimes separated into three groups, the Masculine (1st and 3rd) andFeminine (2nd and 4th) Groups and Neuter Gender.

Gender used to divide nouns into well-define groups, (such as masculine animate objects vs. ideas and concepts vs. animals), but this was lost when the genders collapsed into the first five in Modern dialects.

The First Four Genders

 * Note: Notice that in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd genders, sandhi happens at the end of the noun root before the case ending
 * Note¹: This form is the dictionary form of the noun
 * Note²: The change of the stressed vowel in the root is described as moving once toward the center on the strength chart
 * Note³: The change of the stressed vowel in the root is described as moving to the center of the strength chart

Articles take the ending of the nouns the modify with the exception of the ergative, nominative and vocative singular which share the common irregular articles "pfuh" for masculine gender and neuter and "pfij" for the feminine gender.

The Neuter Gender
Neuter gender nouns are nouns that are formed from nouns derived from the masculine genders that have collapsed to share case endings with the 4th gender due to amelioration, change in semantical function of a word. The words, while declining for the Girl Gender, have articles that decline for the Boy Gender and adjectives that decline for the Man Gender.

Words whose genders collapsed do to amelioration usually have endings from the obsolete dual, trial and quadrual numbers. These obsolete endings have become suffixes that:
 * may be augmentative - pfuh Boifte, teenage boy
 * may be diminutive - pfuh Beije, little boy
 * may describe a subtype or subset of the noun - pfuh Fimelijke, immediate family
 * may serve to describe a group of the noun - pfuh Mantsche, men's only team/group of men
 * may describe a change in state of being - pfuh Mannelme, becoming a man

Some endings may serve multiple purposes:
 * pfuh Kelerje, favorite color (admirative) vs. pfuh Menje, young man (diminutive)

Non-neuter Amelioration
Words derived from feminine gender nouns collapse into the girl gender and not the Neuter
 * pfij Hausje (the home) from pfij Haus (the house), woman gender, is a girl gender noun

Some words may decline to all Man, Woman and Neuter genders. These words:
 * may change the noun into the performer of the verb derived from the noun - pfon Ittekkeron, pfan Ittekkeran, pfon Ittekkeran, eater
 * may change the noun into the recipient of the verb derived from the noun - pfïn Ittenïn, pfën Ittenën, pfïn Ittenën, eaten thing

Some words collapse to the man gender if from a masculine gender and to the woman gender if from a feminine gender. These words:
 * may be admirative - pfij Ittelnät, favorite food
 * may change what was a concrete noun into an abstract idea - pfuh Plekeit, playdate
 * may describe an ongoing state of being - pfuh Manneg, manhood

= See also =


 * Almsaundean language
 * Lindjerblau
 * Lindjerblau verbs