Carnian grammar

Carnian morphology is very similar to that of other Slavic languages. Its unique traits include:

• Reduction of grammatical cases to four
• Uninflected predicative form in adjectives and participles
• The past tense formation continues Slavic perfect with L-participles with the auxiliary verb in preposition
• Reduction in the -ovati conjugation class (*milovati > milat; milujem > miliem)
• Mix of Western and Southern forms

Articles

Carnian is not the only Slavic language with articles (others are Bulgarian, Macedonian, and to some extent Sorbian languages), but is the only one with both definite and indefinite articles in preposition. They are inflected by case, gender, and number (except for the indefinite, which is absent in plural). The definite article is consistently used, while the indefinite is in practice often omitted.

Indefinite jen inflection

		Singular
		Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative		jen	jena	jeno
Accusative	inanimate		jenà	jenga
	animate	jenga
Genitive			jene
Dative		jemo	jeni	jemo

Definite ten inflection

		Singular			Plural
		Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative		ten	ta	to	ti	te	ta
Accusative	inanimate				te
	animate	tega
Genitive			te	tega	tech
Dative		temo	tei	temo	tem

Nouns

Nouns are marked for case and number. There are four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative) and two numbers (singular and plural), although some conservative dialects preserve instrumental case and dual number. Carnian nouns are divided into three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), each of which has several declension patterns.

Masculine Declension

Masculine nouns are declined according to hard, soft, or a-stem patterns. The majority of masculine nouns follow the hard or soft declension, whereas the a-stem declension is reserved for a small category of words and is identical to the feminine a-stem declension. While Carnian preserves the hard-soft stem distinction, these two declension patterns have merged to some extent, similarly to neighboring South Slavic languages.

Masculine nouns are further divided between animate and inanimate nouns:

• For inanimate nouns, the accusative singular is identical to the nominative singular
• For animate nouns, the accusative singular is identical to the genitive singular
• In plural, the distinction is significant for hard stems ending in velar consonant /k, g, x/, which are palatalized to /s/ (for /k, x/) and /z/ (for /g/) in animate nouns and remain unchanged in inanimate nouns. This is not true for a great part of Carniolan dialects, which always preserve the hard velar consonant (as in Slovene)
• a-stems are not differentiated by animacy

		Hard		Soft		a-stem
		singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative		-	i	-	i, e*	a	i
Accusative	inanimate					à
	animate	a		a
Genitive			ou		eu	e	-
Dative		o	om	o	em	i	am

Note: *e is used when preceded by /j/, for example stroi 'machine', plural stroje

Feminine Declension

Feminine nouns are declined according to four patterns. Majority of them belong to the a-stem declension, which is further divided into hard and soft. Carnian differs from Slovene and Serbo-Croatian in preserving this distinction although the differences between have been leveled, just as in masculine nouns.

	Hard		Soft		consonant-stem		i-stem
	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative	a	i	a	è	- / i	i	-	i
Accusative	à		à		-
Genitive	e	-	e	-	e	-	i
Dative	i	am	i, e*	am	i	am		iem

Note: *e is used when preceded by /j/

The consonant-stem declension (covering r- and v-stems) does not usually append any suffixes in nominative singular (creu 'blood'; however, r-stems allow additional shortened form with -i (both mater and mati are used for 'mother').

Neuter Declension

The vast majority of neuter nouns follow the first neuter declension. Their nominative singular ending is -o (following hard o-stem declension), -e (following soft o-stem declension), or a null ending (following n- or nt-stem declensions). The s-stem declension is no longer present in Carnian, having merged with the first declension. In all neuter declensions, nominative and accusative forms are the same.

	Hard		Soft		n-stem		nt-stem
	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative	o	a	e	a	è	ena	è	enta
Accusative
Genitive	a	-	a	-	ena	en	enta	ent
Dative	o	om	o	em	eno	enom	ento	entom

Dialectal variation

Some Carniolan dialects experience masculinization of neuter nouns to varying extents, especially in the singular. A small subgroup of eastern Carinthian dialects experiences feminization of neuter nouns.

Littoral and some Kvarner dialects, on the other hand, tend to merge neuter and masculine genders into one, which is most prominent in the presence of the neuter -o or -e ending in the singular nominative of masculine nouns (cf. leabo 'bread', mangie 'man' vs. standard leab, manġ) and entirely masculine endings in plural. This phenomenon is most common in areas with the strongest influence of Romance languages, which usually finish their nouns with a vowel.

Adjectives

Declension

Modern Carnian preserves only definite adjectival declension, differing from Slovene and Serbo-Croatian, which distinguish between definite and indefinite. The loss of the indefinite declension was gradual, being used only in the predicative by the end of the Old Carnian period. It then evolved into a special, uninflected predicative adjective, which basically follows the old indefinite masculine nominative form but is used for all genders, cases, and numbers. This form is treated as the base form of all adjectives (similarly to German). The same is true for adjectival participles. All predicative adjectives have ultimate accent, so the stressed syllable agrees with the non-predicative form (compare zelen /zɛˈlɛn/ vs. zeleny /zɛˈlɛnɛɪ̯/).

Adjectives in expressions other than predicative are placed before the nouns and agree with them in case, number, and gender. In contrast to nouns, the hard-soft distinction was lost in adjectives, with soft declension taking over the hard one. Thus all adjectives follow the standard declension pattern, which is the same for adjectival nouns.

		Singular			Plural
		Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Predicative		-
Nominative		y	a	e	i	e	a
Accusative	inanimate		à		e
	animate	ega
Genitive			e	ega	ich
Dative		emo	i	emo	im

Examples:

• Ta trava je zelen - The grass is green (predicative expression)
• Vidim ta zelenà travà - I see the green grass (attributive expression)

Comparison

Comparative and superlative formations follow analytical construction with the use of adverbs vent 'more' and nai (rarely also naivent) 'most', respectively, followed by the adjective in positive form. A few irregular adjectives, especially old and basic ones, have fossilized the old affix formation, such as miens 'smaller', ventz 'bigger', gors 'worse', and bols 'better'. These irregular adjectives use the comparative forms to form the superlative.

		Positive	Comparative	Superlative
		fast	faster	fastest
Regular	Predicative	barz	vent barz	nai barz
	Masculine	barzy	vent barzy	nai barzy
	Feminine	barza	vent barza	nai barza
	Neuter	barze	vent barze	nai barze
		good	better	best
Iregular	Predicative	dober	bols	nai bols
	Masculine	dobry	bolsy	nai bolsy
	Feminine	dobra	bolsa	nai bolsa
	Neuter	dobre	bolse	nai bolse

Adverbs

Adverbs in Carnian are usually formed from adjectives with the -o suffix, thus continuing old hard neuter adjectival declension. Comparative is formed with the -ei suffix, while the superlative with the adverb nai in preposition. Similarly to adjectives, the superlative form is based on the positive, except for the irregular adverbs, which are based on the comparative.

	Positive	Comparative	Superlative
	fast	faster	fastest
Regular	barzo	barzei	nai barzo
	well	better	best
Iregular	dobro	bolsei	nai bolsei

Verbs

Grammatical categories

Carnian verbs distinguish:

• Two grammatical numbers: singular and plural
• Three persons
• Four tenses: present, past, pluperfect, and future
• Three moods: indicative, imperative, and conditional
• Two aspects: perfective and imperfective

Conjugation

Infinitive

Standard Carnian preserves only the short infinitive with the -t suffix, preceded by a thematic vowel, if there is any. It thus differs from South Slavic languages, whose standard infinitive ends in -ti. The change -ti > -t, that is the loss of the final vowel, is a relatively recent phenomenon which took place after the rise of penultimate accent; thus all infinitives are stressed on the final syllable. Some dialects, in particular the Lower and Kvarner, preserve the long infinitive -ti and contrastive supine in -t. In addition, western coastal dialects experience rhotacization of the infinitive suffix, which then becomes variably -r, -ri, or -re, depending on the region (cf. Western Istrian ċitare vs. standard ċitat 'to read').

Present indicative

In the present indicative, verbs have mostly the same endings across all declensions. The extra -e- is added to the endings when the verb stem ends in a consonant.

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
-a-	-a-m	-a-ṡ	-a	-a-me	-a-te	-a-jan
-i-	-i-m	-i-ṡ	-i	-i-me	-i-te	-i-jan
-e-	-e-m	-e-ṡ	-e	-e-me	-e-te	-e-jan / -an*
-je-	-je-m	-je-ṡ	-je	-je-me	-je-te	-ø-jan
-ø-	-ø-m	-ø-ṡ	-ø	-ø-me	-ø-te	-ø-jan

Note: *The -e-jan ending occurs in verbs with infinitive in -et (cf. vuemet 'to know how', vuemejan), while the -an occurs in verbs with infinitive in -t (cf. nest 'to carry', nesan)