A small grammar of Lessinu/Leßinu/Läßinu/Läßin pt.1: Nouns
From: | Joe <joe@...> |
Date: | Tuesday, July 29, 2003, 19:29 |
Well, despite finding out at least two people had the same idea as me, I
decided to press on, regardless.
Lessinu(I'm using the far southern orthography, because that's the most
ASCII friendly) has three genders, two numbers, and two cases. The cases
are inflected on the article, not the noun itself.
The Genders have the endings -u(m), -u(n), and -a(f), respectively. In the
northern dialects, these are dropped. In the plural, these change
to -os, -a, and -as. The neuter plural ending is dropped in the northern
dialects. The article inflects for number, gender and case.
So...
'horse' 'monster' 'cat'
Nom.Il Effu(S) Il Monzeru(S) La Fela(S)
Il Eff(N) Il Monzer(N) La Fel(N)
Gen. Lei Effu(S) Lei Monzeru(S) Lei Fela(S)
Lei Eff(N) Lei Monzer(N) Lei Fel(N)
Nom pl. Los Effos La Monzera(S) Las Felas
La Monzer(N)
Gen pl Lohr Effos Lohr Monzera(S) Lohr Felas
Lohr Monzer(N)
So, 'the Monster's cats' is 'Las Felas lei Monzer(u).'
Exactly the same declension applies to indefinite articles:
(m) (nt) (f)
Nom unu unu una 'a'
Gen unei unei unei 'of a'
Nom. Pl unos una unas 'some'
Gen. Pl unohr unohr unohr 'of some'
So you see, the nouns are relatively simple...