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==Grammar== | ==Grammar== | ||
Tulvan is a mostly analytical language, but some remnants of an older case system still remain, for example, in the accusative of nouns. Both pronouns and nouns are inflected for accusative, there's also an adjectival prefix i- to form adjectives from nouns and pronouns. In the case of pronouns they serve to create the possessive adjectives for each person. | Tulvan is a mostly analytical language, but some remnants of an older case system still remain, for example, in the accusative of nouns. Both pronouns and nouns are inflected for accusative, there's also an adjectival prefix i- to form adjectives from nouns and pronouns. In the case of pronouns they serve to create the possessive adjectives for each person. | ||
The accusative is used in nouns to mark the direct object of a verb. The mark of the accusative in Tulvan is the affix '''-u'''. It can sometimes behave as a suffix and sometimes as a prefix. This phenomenon is called ''allotaxy'', and is phonetically conditioned by the letter in which the previous word ends or the next word begins with, wether it is a consonant or a vowel to avoid a combination of C-C or V-V. | |||
For instance, in the sentence ''cur mem uspär?'' "Do you want some water?" the u- marks the accusative because ''mem'' ends in consonant and ''spär'' begins with one. However in a sentence like: | |||
*''Levi crum'''u''' nus''. See an old man! (imperative) | |||
Where ''crum'' is "man", it is perfectly valid to put the -u as a suffix. But this could change in a sentence like: | |||
*''Lev kwam '''u'''crum nus''. I see an old man. (present) | |||
Even though, in this particular case, either prefix or suffix forms are valid, thus ''lev kwam crum'''u''' nus'', is also valid. Depending only on personal taste; however in the sentence: | |||
*''Lev kwam ucrum ëv nus''. I see a man (who) is old. | |||
The preferred choice would be to prefix the accusative to avoid the following vowel. However, in cases where both the previous word ends in a vowel and the next one begins with a vowel the word preceding usually has precedence. Although some dialects can show different patterns or uses. | |||
The only other marker nouns posses is the number marking, the plural. This marker is '''-n, -en''' for words ending in a vowel and words ending in a consonant respectively. So a word like ''utim'' "tree", would have a plural ''utimen'' "trees". This also applies for pronouns and verbs. | |||
*''Lev kwam utimen nus''. I see the old trees or I look at the old trees. | |||
In fact the distinction between "look" and "see" is made by the pronoun. | |||
===Nouns=== | ===Nouns=== | ||