South Carpathian grammar
This article discusses the grammar of the South Carpathian language.
Morphophonology
South Carpathian has two main morphophonological processes: the vowel harmony and the consonant gradation.
Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, meaning that it is uniform within a word, so either only front or only back vowels can be present in a single word. This usually does not apply to new compound words and loanwords.
Unlike in other Carpathian languages, the consonant gradation became non-productive and unpredictable in South Carpathian. Originally a consonant in the strong grade "weakened" when a syllable became closed. However, in the modern laguage those grades were altered significantly, especially after the merging of geminated consonants with plain ones. South Carpathian shows only the qualitative gradation of stops and fricatives. Examples of the gradation are listed in the table below (nouns are shown in the nominative and accusative case):
| Gradation | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| p : b | holpu : holboda | swan |
| t : d | partu : pardoda | axe |
| k : g | pelkĕ : pelgĕg | bridge |
| c : z | lelcĕ : lelzĕg | alder |
| č : ž | uču : užoda | question |
| nk : ∅/j | fenkă : feag | winter |
| nz : n | kedvenzĕ : kedvenĕg | kindness |
Nouns
South Carpathian has the least amount of cases among the Carpathian languages: four grammatical, three directional, and two locative cases (nine in total). The commitative case is obsolete, but it is used dialects of some villages and (seldom) in literature, thus it is listed below. Endings with back and front vowels are used with words having a respecting vowel harmony, so koi "house" uses back vowel endings, while pienkä "wind" uses front vowel endings.
| Case | Ending | Example | Translation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sg | pl | sg | pl | ||
| Grammatical | |||||
| nominative | – | -k | koi | koik | (a) house |
| accusative | -g/-da/-dä | -ba/-bä | kojug | koibă | house (as an object) |
| genitive | -gă/-gĕ | -ădă/-ĕdĕ | koigă | kojudă | of (a) house |
| essive | -p/-ĭp/-ip | -ub/-üb | koip | kojub | as (a) house |
| Locative | |||||
| inessive | -t | -tui/-töi | kojut | kojutui | in (a) house |
| adessive | -go/-gö | -ko/-kö | koigo | kojuko | on (a) house |
| Directional | |||||
| elative | -hĭ/-hi | -kĭ/-ki | koihĭ | koikĭ | out of (a) house |
| lative | -jăb/-jĕb/-ib | -kăb/-kĕb | koijăb | koikăb | to (a) house |
| ablative | -ci | -i | koici | kojui | from (a) house |
| Obsolete | |||||
| commitative | -ĭn/-in | -käin/-koan | kojĭn | koikoan | with (a) house |
Verbs
There are eight main conjugation types in South Carpathian. Some verbs can show some irregularities in their conjugation, though most of those are predictable. As an example a I type verb maed "to speak" and its negative counterpart emaed "not to speak" are given in the table below.
| Tense | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Past | Perfect | *Pluperfect[note 1] | ||||||
| Mood | Person | Positive | Negative | Positive | Negative | Positive | Negative | Positive | Negative |
| Indicative | |||||||||
| 1st sg | maes | mas | maus | magus | maelĭd | emailĭd | ĭgĭs maen | oais maen | |
| 2nd sg | maeš | maš | mauš | maguš | maešĭg | emaišĭg | ĭgĭš maen | oaiš maen | |
| 3rd sg | maju | mai | majub | maub | majui | emai | ĭagĭ maen | oai maen | |
| 1st pl | malk | emalk | maulok | magulok | malok | emalok | ĭskĭ maen | oaskĭ maen | |
| 2nd pl | mašk | emašk | maušĭk | magušĭk | mašĭk | emašĭk | ĭškĭ maen | oaškĭ maen | |
| 3rd pl | mauk | maguk | maibĭ | magib | mampĭu | emampĭu | ĭkĭ maen | oakĭ maen | |
| Conditional | |||||||||
| 1st sg | mačĭs | emačĭs | mačailĭd | emačailĭd | |||||
| 2nd sg | mačĭš | emačĭš | mačaišĭg | emačaišĭg | |||||
| 3rd sg | mačĭu | emačĭu | mačajui | emačai | |||||
| 1st pl | mažălk | emačălk | mačălok | emačălok | |||||
| 2nd pl | mažăšk | emačăšk | mačăšĭk | emačăšĭk | |||||
| 3rd pl | mažĭuk | emačĭuk | mažămpĭu | emažămpĭu | |||||
| Imperative | |||||||||
| 1st sg | makon | emakon | ĭgon maen | oagon maen | |||||
| 2nd sg | makĭg | emakĭg | ĭgĭg maen | oagĭg maen | |||||
| 3rd sg | makai | emakai | ĭgai maen | oagai maen | |||||
| 1st pl | makosăk | emakosăk | ĭgosăk maen | oagosăk maen | |||||
| 2nd pl | makĭvăk | emakĭvăk | ĭgĭvăk maen | oagĭvăk maen | |||||
| 3rd pl | maenkai | emankai | ĭgănkai maen | oagănkai maen | |||||
- ^ This tense is not used anymore. However, it can be found in an old literature.
South Carpathian has three types of infinitives, denoted with Roman numerals. The infinitive I or the i-infinitive is a dictionary form of verbs. Endings of this infinitive are -ĕd, -ăd and -ĭt. This infinitive corresponds to English infinitive (like "to do"). The infinitive II expresses process of action, its endings are -me and -mo. The infinitive III expresses a completed action or manner of action and behaves like a verbal noun. The usual ending of the third infinitive is -n, in older texts -män/-man was also present.
| Infinitive | English translation | Infinitive | English translation | Infinitive | English translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| maed | to speak | tobăd | to walk | mergĕd | to move |
| maemo | (while) speaking | toumo | (while) walking | merĕme | (while) moving |
| maen | speaking (action) | tobăn | walking (action) | mergĕn | moving (action) |