West Carpathian grammar
In this article various aspects of West Carpathian grammar are discussed. Unlike the neighbouring languages, such as Slovak and Polish, which are the Slavic languages, West Carpathian belongs to the Oronaic language family, and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages.
Nouns
The West Carpathian language has gender category in nouns or even in personal pronouns, similarly to neighbouring Hungarian: sun is "he", "she", or "it", depending on the referent. There are no articles, meaning the definiteness is not distinguished.
Cases
West Carpathian has eleven cases: six grammatical cases, three locative cases, three directional cases. The most typical case endings for singular (sg) and plural (pl) numbers are shown in the table below:
Case | Ending | Example | Translation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
sg | pl | sg | pl | ||
Grammatical | |||||
nominative | – | -k | oiva | oivak | (a) head |
accusative | different | -mma | oivā | oivamma | head (as an object) |
genitive | -ui/-ū/-ju | -dū | oivū | oivadū | of (a) head |
dative | -id/-cid | -īd/-ecid | oivid | oivīd | head (as an indirect object) |
instrumental | -inä'/-ina | -kīn/-kain | oivina | oivakain | by means of (a) head |
essive | -pä/-pa | -ipä/-upa | oivapa | oivaupa | as (a) head |
Locative | |||||
inessive | -utu | -eutui/-autui | oivautu | oivautui | in (a) head |
adessive | -ie/-uo | -kke/-kko | oivuo | oivakko | on (a) head |
apudessive | -ve/-vo | -uhe/-uho | oivavo | oivauho | at/near (a) head |
Directional | |||||
illative | -ēn/-oan | -kēn/-kōn | oivoan | oivakōn | into (a) head |
lative | -ivä/-iva | -kua | oivaiva | oivakua | to (a) head |
allative | -hei/-hō | -kei/-kō | oivahō | oivakō | onto (a) head |
Possessive suffixes
Instead of separate possessive pronouns, like English "my" or "her", West Carpathian uses special suffixes. The number of possessors and their person are distinguished. The notable feature is that if a possession is a subject or a direct object of a sentence, it would take a different possessive suffix, than a word in an another case (like genitive or dative). The following are the forms of oiva "head", declined to show possession:
person | number | Subject | Object | Other cases | Translation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
first-person | singular | oivasā | oivame | oiv(a)-vjad | my head |
plural | oivatōk | oivammō | oiv(a)-vnad | our head | |
second-person | singular | oivasa | oivama | oiv(a)-vja | your (sing.) head |
plural | oivakēk | oivammē | oiv(a)-vna | your (pl.) head | |
third-person | oivasau | oivamau | oiv(a)-vjau | his/her/its head | |
plural | oivapōk | oivammou | oiv(a)-vnou | their head |
Words written through the hyphen (-) indicates an insertion of a case ending. When used with cases other than nominative or accusative, a possessive suffix always comes after a case ending, so it is sometimes called a postfix. For example: utuovjau "on his/her hand".