Tauro-Piscean language

Nouns

N.B. The initial letter of every noun in Tauro-Piscean is capitalised.

Genders

The Piscean language includes three 'logical' grammatical genders. While in many languages, the genders do not often relate to physical properties of nouns, they do in Piscean; therefore, most nouns are neuter, while creatures of the male sex are masculine and creatures of female sex are feminine. If one refers to a creature, but does not wish to distinguish sex, the neuter gender can be used as a substitute. Observe the following examples:

• tet Sunnê - the sun (no sex, so neuter)
• tet Mann - the person (no sex specified, so neuter)
• sê Mann - the man (male, so masculine)
• seo Mann - the woman (female, so feminine)

The above example shows the importance the article plays in Piscean of distinguishing between sexes in a language where one noun fits all.

Articles

Definite articles

Indefinite articles

Singular and Plural

There are several ways to form plural nouns in Tauro-Piscean:

• Bok > Bokê (add –ê to nouns that end in a consonant)
• Äto > Ätos (add –s to nouns that end in a vowel other than ê)
• Sunnê > Sunnên (add –n to nouns that end in ê)

Cases

Piscean implements five cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive and instrumental.

Nominative case

This case is used for the subject of the sentence (i.e. the noun doing the verb) and as a complement after: 'bean' ('to be'), 'weortan' ('to become') and 'hatan' ('to be called').

• Tet Äto be niwê - the car is new
• Tet Hund bit - the dog bites

Accusative case

This case is used for the direct object (i.e. the noun having the verb done to it/them) and after certain prepositions.

• We bïğ ten Äto - we buy the car
• Ikk et ten Banánê - I eat the banana

When there is no article with the noun, the noun itself must be inflected. To do so with a noun that ends in a consonant, add -en - or, if it is a proper noun, add -'en. If the noun or proper noun ends in a vowel, add -nen or -'nen respectively.

• Infëmaksion - information
• Ikk habb Infëmaksionen - I have information

Note that when inflecting a plural noun, it must be made plural before it is inflected for the accusative (the same applies to the dative, genitive and instrumental cases).

• Äto - car
• Ätos - cars
• Ikk mag Ätosen - I like cars