Oldvak - More Grammar

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was working on Oldvak again, and some of
you expressed some interest in the samples I posted.  So here's some more of
the grammar, mostly about nouns.

- Oldvak is heavily polysynthetic.  A word could easily have as many as
seven morphemes, and I often have such words.  Compounding rules allow much,
much larger words.

- Most modifications are made with prefixes and suffixes in about equal
distribution, with a few infixes in use.

   Alobents^eyer.
   al-ob-en-ts^eyer
   "It is not my wagon."

   piabayasli
   piaba-as-l-i
   "into that meadow over by you"

   sarelde
   selde + -ar-
   "to weave"

   r^agerto
   r^arto + -ge-
   "loud noise"


- Nouns are divided into three categories: those that may or may not be
possessed, like "wagon"; those that must be possessed, like "foot"; and
those that may not be possessed, like "hill".


- A fully inflected noun is structured as:


number-essive-possessive-truth-stem(dim/aug)-case-location1-location2-questi
on


- Number marking is optional, there are marks for singular and plural.

   ts^eyer  "wagon"
   tats^eyer  "one wagon"
   yets^eyer   "wagons"


- An essive prefix means that this person is the noun.

   dira  "steward"
   egdira  "I the steward"
   irdira  "you the steward"
   aldira  "he/she the steward"


- A possessive prefix refers to whose noun it is.

   obulot  "my coat"
   us^ulot  "your coat"
   atulot  "his/her coat"


- If a noun is "actual", it is unmarked.  Otherwise:

   irviot  "a so-called lake", "a possible lake"
   enviot  "a non-lake"


- Diminutive/augmentative infixes:

   dolb  "hill"
   derolb  "knoll"
   dogelb  "mountain"


- Location suffixes are somewhat like case markers.

   locative   elda "at the plain"
   translative   eldye  "to and from the plain" or "moving about in the
plain"
   allative   eldi  "to the plain"
   ablative   eldu  "from the plain"
   illative   eldas  "in the plain"
   ellative   elduz^  "outside of the plain"
   proximative   eldet  "near the plain"
   aproximate   eldur  "not near the plain"


- Location compared to the speaker and listener may be marked:

   -ki  "here, by both of us"
   -ku  "here, next to me (but not you)"
   -li  "over there by you"
   -lu  "over there (not near either of us)"


- To make a "what about X" question, add -ru.