Valmoric morphology
This article deals with Valmoric morphology, giving a more detailed overview with more examples than the morphology section in the main article.
Nouns
Gender
There are three genders: Masculine, feminine and neuter. Each gender has multiple inflectional paradigms governing case-number endings.
Cases
- See also Valmoric semiotics for more information on morphosyntactic alignment.
Valmoric has 10 cases, detailed below. This case system has undergone both simplifications and innovations from the original Ando-Valic 13-case system.
- Nominative
The nominative case is used to denote:
- The subject of an accusative-aligned intransitive clause: The woman read.
- The subject of an accusative-aligned transitive clause: The woman read a book.
- In ergative-aligned clauses, it functions as the genitive case (see below).
It is principially unmarked, though nominative nouns undergo certain initial mutations with the definite article.
- Accusative
The accusative case is used to denote:
- The object of an accusative-aligned monotransitive clause: The woman read a book.
- The theme of an accusative-aligned ditransitive clause: The woman read the child a book.
- Prepositional objects of motion: He went into the house.
- In ergative-aligned clauses, it also functions as the instrumental case (see below).
- Dative
The dative case is used to denote:
- The recipient of a ditransitive clause: The woman read the child a book.
- A generic indirect object: The woman read (to) the child.
- Static prepositional objects: He was inside the house.
- A compulsory autobenefactive: I will lay me down. (Modern English: I will lie down. / I will lay myself down.)
- Genitive
The genitive case is used to denote:
- A possessor in an accusative-aligned clause: That is someone's house.
- In ergative-aligned clauses, the genitive case acts as the ergative case, which is then used to denote:
- The subject of an intransitive clause: The woman read.
- The object of a transitive clause: The woman read a book.
- Instrumental
The instrumental case is used to denote:
- An instrument using which something was done in an accusative-aligned clause: I diced the onions with a knife.
- An object or person with which something was done in an accusative-aligned clause: I diced the onions with my friend.
- A manner in which something was done in an accusative-aligned clause: I diced the onions with haste.
- In ergative-aligned clauses, the instrumental case acts as the absolutive case, which is used to denote the subject of a transitive clause: The woman read a book.
- Ablative
The ablative case indicates:
- Motion from a place: I came from work.
- A cause: I lost my job because of laziness.
- The agent of a passive clause: He was dearly loved by his brothers.
- Allative
The allative case indicates:
- Motion to a place: I am going to work.
- A goal: I applied for a job.
- A benefactive: I would do anything for him.
- Partitive
The partitive case is used for:
- A subset: I met some of them.
- A distinction: I am different from them.
- A superlative comparison: I am the best in my class.
- Certain objects of intransitive verbs: I drank of the water. (Also used in Valmoric with such verbs as "forget", "know" and "remember".
- Comparative
The comparative case is used for:
- Equative comparisons: I am as good as them.
- Differentiating comparisons: I am better than them.
- Essive
The essive case is used for:
- A state of being: Being a composer I know a lot about music.
- A period of time: I often went swimming as a child.
- Vocative
The vocative case expresses direct address: Hello, world!
It is considered rude to "react" when one's name is mentioned in someone else's conversation except in the vocative, as this is considered an interruption.
Number
- See also: #Attributive numerals
Valmoric formally has three grammatical numbers: Singular, dual and plural.
However, the distinction between dual and plural has only been maintained in "anthropomorphic" nouns, i.e. nouns describing either people or things thought of as people. This includes things like occupations, most supernatural entities, domesticated animals and anthropomorphised concepts like fate, fortune and evil.
Declension paradigms
Compounding and affixes
Verbs
Copula
The normal copula (but not the existential verb) in Valmoric is the verb stëun.
Much like with other verbs, the first aorist of the copula denotes a current state of affairs while the second aorist denotes a general state of affairs. Thus, the distinction between the first and second aorist of the copula can be compared to the distinction between the esse- and stare-derived Romance copulas, or between is and bí/bith in Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
Nonfinite forms
Infinitive
The infinitive of the verb is generally the verbal noun (aorist present noun) combined with the prefix -un. It finds more limited use than in English, outwith being the citation form of the verb, as Valmoric uses either the verbal noun or the impersonal form of the verb in many of the places where English would use the infinitive. This occurs, for instance, in complementary clauses:
- "I want to die" would be expressed as "want I dying.ACC" in Valmoric, with "dying" being the verbal noun
- "I want him to die" would be expressed as "want I his.ACC dying.ACC"
- "I want her to kill him" would be expressed as "want I his.ACC she.ABL-dying.ACC" (Essentially, "I want his becauseofherdying")
Aspect-tense nouns
Each verb formally has four aspect-tense nouns: Aorist present, aorist past, aorist future and perfect.
These combine with inflectional endings to make various tense-aspect-person-number combinations, which can then be augmented with further mood and voice suffixes.
Only the aorist present noun (known simply as the "verbal noun") and the perfect noun are actually used independently. The aorist past and future nouns are only used as inflectional roots.
Inflectional endings
Person-number-tense
2nd aorist
Mood
Valmoric features the following inflectional moods:
- Indicative, the unmarked ("default") mood: "I am happy!"
- Imperative, an irregular mood which can only take the aorist present root: "Be happy!"
- Subjunctive, a regular mood with the suffix -nV: "If I were ill, I would die." Generally used with the second aorist.
- Conditional, a regular mood with the suffix -cV: "If I were ill, I would die." Generally used with the first aorist.
Voice and valency
Auxiliary verbs
Defective verbs
Existential verb
Verbs of manner
Patient clitics
Verbal particles
Derivational morphology
Pronouns and determiners
- For more detail on deixis and anaphora see Valmoric semiotics.
Definite article
The singular citation forms of the definite article (save the comparative) end in ⟨m⟩, however the singular definite article (save the comparative) assimilates to the succeeding consonant in the following manner:
- ⟨m⟩ for labials, vowels and h: am-flag (the bird); em-bát (the boat); um-úval (the apple)
- ⟨n⟩ for dentals, velars, n, t and d: an-turas (the hunger); en-cila (the girl); un-þud (the wood)
- ⟨l⟩ for l, w: ul-laïn (the child)
- ⟨r⟩ for r: er-rás (the claw)
- ⟨s⟩ for s, z: as-staurran (the largeness)
The singular and plural articles take the singular form of the noun, while the dual article takes the dual form. If the noun begins in a vowel, it is preceded by:
- ⟨n-⟩ (masculine, feminine) or ⟨ð-⟩ (neuter) if it is dual (save the comparative), or plural genitive, instrumental, ablative, allative or partitive
- ⟨h-⟩ (all genders) in all other plural cases save the comparative
- ⟨g-⟩ if it is comparative
There is no vocative form of the definite article.
The Definite Article | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |||||||
Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | |
Nominative | am | maï | ma | em | mi | me | um | my | mu |
Accusative | nam | naï | na | nem | ni | ne | num | ny | ne |
Dative | gam | gaï | ga | gem | gi | ge | gum | gy | gu |
Genitive | om | moï | mo | om | mi | mo | om | mùi | mo |
Instrumental | cam | caï | ca | cem | ci | ce | cum | cy | cu |
Ablative | vam | vaï | va | vem | vi | ve | cum | vy | vu |
Allative | dam | daï | da | dem | di | de | dum | dy | du |
Partitive | sam | saï | sa | sem | si | se | sum | sy | su |
Comparative | í | í | á | í | í | é | í | í | ú |
Essive | cam | caï | ca | cem | ci | ce | cum | cy | cu |
Personal pronouns
Possessives
Demonstratives
Indefinites
Relatives
Interrogatives
Quantifiers
Prepositions
Declension
Case
Adjectives
- See also Valmoric semiotics for further information on the predicative and attributive use of adjectives.
Attributive
Predicative
Degrees of comparison
Adverbs
Formation
Verbal adverbs
Adjectival adverbs
Numerals
Attributive numerals
Cardinals
Ordinals
Cardinal particles
Numeral nouns
Ordinal noun
Collective animate
Collective inanimate
Other numerals
Multipliers
Multiplicative adverbs
Distributive adverbs
Conjunctions
- See Valmoric semiotics for information on dependent clauses.