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 'mother').