Re: Wenedyk - Adjectives

--- Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>
wrote:

> Adjectives must agree in number, case, and gender
> with the nouns they modify.
Here Kerno is probably about the most divergent of
Romance languages; because adjectives have been
totally reduced to one form in the spoken language
(like English adjectives) so you can't even have them
agree for gender or number. In writing, it is possible
to distinguish singular and plural only. Technically,
they _should_ agree for gender, number and case on
account of the mutations that should be there; but
anymore, you find that mutations are not used in
adjectives.

> They can be placed both before and after it.
Same, except that adjectives placed before are
considered emphatic.

New, find, beck, send, magnós, matos and amatos mean
different things depending on whether they come before
or after the noun. New before = new to one's
experience; new after = new in general.

finn gouenna = fair woman / cats find = white cat
beccos varró = mean bastard / varró beck = short man
senos maysteors = wise teacher / maystoers send = old
teacher
Magnós Alexander = Great Alexander / Alexander magnós
= large Alexander
matos dia = auspicious day / dia math = pleasant day
amatos livoers = shoddy book / livoers amath = bad
book

[The -nos becomes -nn before goue-.]

Now, you're probably looking at this and saying: hey,
there are _two_ forms, not one! Indeed, it should be
obvious that -os forms (of old -a, -o, and -u stem
adjectives) preceed the noun, bare roots follow.

Old consonant and -i stem adjectives tend to end up
with silent -e or plain stems regardless of whether
they preceed or follow their nouns.

> 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"
For the most part, Kerno adjectives can either preceed
or follow their nouns. Sometimes there are minor
changes in semantics; but only in the above list are
the meanings really so different.

>          masc./neut. sing.  fem. sing.    MFN
>                                           plur.
> Nom.     brzew "short"      brzewa        brzewe
> Gen.     brzewu             brzewej       brzewu
> Dat.     brzewi             brzewej       brzewysz
> Acc.     brzew              brzewã        brzewe
1st decl.                  2nd decl.
s.         pl.             s.           pl.

beckos     becks           dubiós       dubióses
beck       beck            dubiós       dubiós
/bEk       bEk             duvjos       duvjos/

magnós     magans          rapide       rapides
magan      magan           rapid        rapid
/magnos    mag@n           rapId        rapId/

The first line shows forms that preceed nouns; the
second line shows forms that follow nouns. You can see
that spoken forms are quite reduced.

The "fully declined" form you find in older
literature:

         m.s.        m.pl.   f.s.      f.pl.
nom      beccos      veck    vecka     veck
obl      mbeck       veck    mbecka    veck

> 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:
Kerno can add -oer and -am to form comparative and
superlative; or it can have plu (more) and il plu (the
more) before the adjective:

duls    dulsoer     il dulsam
duls    plu duls    il plu duls
sweet   sweeter     sweetest

A few truly irregular adjectives exist, like boun
(good) and mais (more):

boun    meior    il matham
mal     peior    il pessam
magnós  maior    il maxam
--      mais     il maxam

> Jan
Padraic.


=====
Aci ce Kernow le ouygaint mil; et savuriont y pherque!

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