Cernelian/Nominals
Nominals in Cernelian are declinable word classes, including nouns, adjectives, numerals, or (demonstrative, personal, interrogative) pronouns. Unlike that of Finnish or Estonian that those have large number of grammatical cases (15 or 14), Cernelian has simplified it to 8 cases. Due to the influence of Slavic languages, Cernelian developed animacy.
Grammatical cases
There are 8 grammatical cases in Cernelian:
| Grammatical cases | Cernelian name | Usual endings (singular) | Usual meanings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | nominatiw | -∅ | none |
| Accusative | akuzatiw | -ę, -∅ | (object) |
| Genitive | genitiw | -ę | (of, 's) |
| Dative | datiw | -ę, -ą | to |
| Locative | lokatiw | -so, -sie, -cho, -sze | in, on |
| Ablative | ablatiw | -sto, -ście | from |
| Instrumental | instrument | -łe, -le | from |
| Vocative | wokatiw | -so, -sie, -cho, -sze | (calling, -!) |
All of the grammatical case names has the alternative forms in -ę ptódziemo, e.g. nominatiwę ptódziemo.
Declensions
- 1st declension: Nominals ending in -o, and it is the largest group of nominal declension by number.
- 2nd declension: Nominals ending in -e, also as the soft variant of 1st declension.
- 3rd declension: Nominals ending in soft -∅.
- 4th declension: Nominals ending in hard -∅, including sonorants.
- 5th declension: Nominals ending in -ę or -ą (n-stem).
- Irregular nominals: Numerous nominals that declined irregularly, like long stems, s-stems, and consonantic stems uncovered in 4th declension.
Adjectives
Adjectives, like nouns, correspond to one of declension type, like toso would end in -o, so it must classified as declension type 1A. However, adjectives has both animate and inanimate declensions (anim. tę vs. inan. toso), as a result of Finnic syncretism in accusative and genitive cases further influenced by Slavic. Adjectives are also must agree in case and number with the noun they modify, for example nominative syrz toło "big house", but dative syrzę tołoję and plural syrze toło (nominative plurals are usually indistinguishable from singular).
Comparative of adjectives end in -ępo (-iępo after velars) in the 1st declension, -iępo in 2nd and 3rd, -ypo (-ipo after velars) in 4th. It placed to the weak grade (toso, tępo "rare, rarer"). Superlatives are formed by prefixing naj- to the comparative (tępo, najtępo "rarer, rarest").
Numerals
| Number (in nominative) |
Genitive | Dative | Locative | Ablative | Instrumental | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | isz | icię | iciesie | icieście | iciele | |
| ję | jęcię | jęciesie | jęcieście | jęciele | ||
| 2 | kósz | kocię | kocioso | kociosto | kocioło | |
| cienię | ciesię | ciesioso | ciesiosto | ciesioło | ||
| 3 | kiełmie | kiełmiedzię | kiełmą | kiełmiocho | kiełmiosto | kiełmioło |
| kiełmo | kiełmędzie | kiełmęciesie | kiełmędzioso | kiełmędziosto | kiełmędzioło | |
| 4 | niele | nielę | nieloso | nielosto | nieloło | |
| nielo | nielędzie | nielęciesie | nielędzioso | nielędziosto | nielędzioło | |
Specific alterations
- In the 3rd and 4th declensions (except sonorant stems), last vowels -ę- and -o- becomes -ą- and -ó- (póch : gen. pochię "thick", chącz : chęczę "breath").
- In some nouns that contain final Proto-Cernelian yers (ь/ъ), the vowel -(i)e- sometimes deleted (čьvь : čьvę → czew : czwie "stone").
- Endings containing initial -i- becomes -y- after consonants c, cz, dz, dż, rz, and sz (icze : dat. pl. iczyję "age").
- Like Finnish and Estonian, consonant gradation (involving lenition) are frequent in Cernelian. However, it is not possible to predict the ending whose affected by gradation (weak grade), due to syllable structure changes. This is the gradation table:
| Strong grade (unaffected) |
Weak grade (affected) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Palatal | Plain | Palatal |
| k | cz/c | ∅/g | ż/dz |
| t | ć/ci | ∅/d | dź/dzi |
| p | p/pi | ∅/w | w/wi |
| s/ch | ś/si/sz | ∅ | j/i/∅ |
- The weak grades g, d, and w are used after consonants, although due to Slavic metathesis the original weak grades sometimes still exist (*oldak → łodo, not *ła). The nature of palatal weak grade of s varies: j are used intervocalically, i used after the rest of consonants, and ∅ (just succeeding vowels, i → y) only used after consonants explained in point 3 including l.
- Palatalizations of stem's final consonant (jołk-o "foot" → jołdz-oso, jołc-ę)
- Unless noted, letters are palatalized as -Ci(V)- (/ʲ(j)/).
- Letters orthographically containing acute accent (like ć, ź, ś, ...) are written as above, except the accent was removed (ś → -si(V)-).
- ch → sz.
- d → dź/dziV.
- g → cz used in endings affected by first palatalization, otherwise dz.
- k → cz used in endings affected by first palatalization, otherwise c
- ł → l.
- r → rz.
- t → ć/ciV.
- Endings affected by first palatalization are in red, while affected by second palatalization are in green.
- Before non-palatalized (including historically ones) consonants, *ě and *e becomes a and (i)o (*jȅko : pl. *jȅ → joko : je "time").
- Cernelian exhibits final obstruent devoicing that not reflected in the orthography, see more at Cernelian/Phonetics and orthography.
