Re: Wenedyk - Adjectives

On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 17:30:49 +0100, =?iso-8859-1?q?Jan=20van=20Steenbergen?
= <ijzeren_jan@...> wrote:
>
>For example:
>  biela dziej "a beautiful day"
>  a£t jedyficiej "a high building" (£ = l-stroke)
>  £êgwa wenedyka "the Venedian language" (ê = e-ogonek)
>  Empierz Roman "the Roman Empire"
>
> Declension of Wenedyk adjectives caused me some serious trouble. In
> Latin, they are divided into different classes, that coincide more or
> less with the noun declensions. First I considered the possibility of
> modifying the Latin system only by subjecting it to the common Wenedyk
> sound changes, but this seemed to be very contrary to both the Slavic and
> the Romance languages, which show a strong tendency towards
> simplification.
You're a lot further along than I am. I've starting out by, as you say,
just applying sound changes. The product of this is in some ways more
complicated than Latin due to sandhi. However, the sound changes cause
reductions of the endings on the last word of a phrase, so that some
simplification comes directly from the changes. Then there's some analogy
operating that I haven't figured out yet.

> Then I decided to fit all Wenedyk adjectives to the Latin -us/-a/-um
> declension. First I endeavoured a neuter nominative form on -u; however,
> since I would never be able to explain how the ending -um, that always
> drops off, survives in this particular case, I finally decided to adopt
> the ending -e from the third declension.
Did you ever posted the specific sound changes? If so, I've forgotten (not
unusual).

> As a result, declension of Wenedyk adjectives is quite simple after all.
>
>         masc./neut. sing.  fem. sing.        MFN plur.
>Nom.     brzew "short"      brzewa            brzewe
>Gen.     brzewu             brzewej           brzewu
>Dat.     brzewi             brzewej           brzewysz
>Acc.     brzew              brzewã            brzewe
>
> When the adjective is followed by a noun that begins with c'-/ci- or
> dz'-/dzi-, its final consonant is softened both in spelling and in
> pronunciation: _bon miedyk_ "a good doctor", but _boñ Dziew_ "good God".
> The opposite never occurs: _mañ dom_ "a big house".
>
> The comparative and superlative are built by adding the suffix
> -iór/-iora/-iore, the superlative by adding the suffix -ym/-yma/-yme to
> the root of the adjective:
> brzew "short", brzewiór "shorter", brzewym "shortest"
> k£ar "bright", k£arzór "brighter", k£arym "brightest".
>
> In some cases, the degrees of comparison are irregular:
> bon – mielór – optym "good – better – best"
> ma£ – piejór – pieszym "bad – worse – worst"
> mañ  – majór – maczym "big – bigger – biggest"
> parzew – mynor – mynym "small – smaller – smallest"
> wieczó£ – wieszczór – wieszczym "old – older – oldest"
> mu£cy – p£urze – p£urzyme "many/much – more – most"
> a£t – suprzór – suprzem "high – higher – highest"
It looks like Wenedyk dropped the regularly formed superlative from
ordinary adjectives preserving the frequently used irregular superlatives,
then recreated the ordinary superlatives by analogy. Why not?

Jeff

> Any feedback is always appreciated.
> Especially when it comes to answering this question: does the way I
> changed Latin declension to Wenedyk look (at least a tiny little bit)
> acceptable?
>
>Regards,
>Jan
>
>
>=====