Valmoric morphology

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.

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.

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.

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 dual forms of the definite article take the singular form of the noun. 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

Adjectives

See also Valmoric semiotics for further information on the predicative and attributive use of adjectives.

Conjunctions

See Valmoric semiotics for information on dependent clauses.