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 The commitative case is obsolete, but it is used dialects of some villages and (seldom) in literature, thus it is listed below.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
Case	sg	pl	sg	pl	Translation
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
	1^st sg	maes	mas	maus	magus	maelĭd	emailĭd	ĭgĭs maen	oais maen
	2^nd sg	maeš	maš	mauš	maguš	maešĭg	emaišĭg	ĭgĭš maen	oaiš maen
	3^rd sg	maju	mai	majub	maub	majui	emai	ĭagĭ maen	oai maen
	1^st pl	malk	emalk	maulok	magulok	malok	emalok	ĭskĭ maen	oaskĭ maen
	2^nd pl	mašk	emašk	maušĭk	magušĭk	mašĭk	emašĭk	ĭškĭ maen	oaškĭ maen
	3^rd pl	mauk	maguk	maibĭ	magib	mampĭu	emampĭu	ĭkĭ maen	oakĭ maen
Conditional
	1^st sg	mačĭs	emačĭs			mačailĭd	emačailĭd
	2^nd sg	mačĭš	emačĭš			mačaišĭg	emačaišĭg
	3^rd sg	mačĭu	emačĭu			mačajui	emačai
	1^st pl	mažălk	emačălk			mačălok	emačălok
	2^nd pl	mažăšk	emačăšk			mačăšĭk	emačăšĭk
	3^rd pl	mažĭuk	emačĭuk			mažămpĭu	emažămpĭu
Imperative
	1^st sg	makon	emakon			ĭgon maen	oagon maen
	2^nd sg	makĭg	emakĭg			ĭgĭg maen	oagĭg maen
	3^rd sg	makai	emakai			ĭgai maen	oagai maen
	1^st pl	makosăk	emakosăk			ĭgosăk maen	oagosăk maen
	2^nd pl	makĭvăk	emakĭvăk			ĭgĭvăk maen	oagĭvăk maen
	3^rd 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)

[1] This tense is not used anymore. However, it can be found in an old literature.

[note 1]