User:Nicolasstraccia/Mininorsk

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Mininorsk
᛬ᛊᛗᚪᚱᚾᚮᚱᚿᛌᛍᛧᚱ᛬
"Smárnornskur", "Smárra Nornskur" or "Hit Smárra Norðra Málur"
Created byNicolás Straccia
Settingunknown
A Posteriori
  • Mininorsk
    ᛬ᛊᛗᚪᚱᚾᚮᚱᚿᛌᛍᛧᚱ᛬
Early form
Eo.→ ←O.N.

Mininorsk (native ᛬ᛊᛗᚪᚱᚾᚮᚱᚿᛌᛍᛧᚱ᛬ "Smárnornskur", aka "Smárra Nornskur" or "Hit Smárra Norðra Málur") is a conlanging exercise started by Nicolas Straccia in June 2016.

It is thought as an exercise on creativity within constraints, making something new with a definite framework based on simplicity and conciseness. The goals of Mininorsk are to have a highly regular grammar based on precise limitations:

1) a nordic morphology and word stock (with an eclectic choice of sources – using Old Norse, Proto-norse and North Germanic reflexes); and
2) a pseudo-esperantic grammatical scaffolding (following aspects of Esperanto morphology and syntax).

The aesthetic goal is to achieve the same kind of through-the-looking-glass feeling Esperanto has with regard to its Romance resonance, but with Old Norse.


Even though it is in principle a stand-alone exercise, Mininorsk has potential for expansion and might be expanded upon in the future.

Mininorsk grammar in a nutshell

Mininorsk has an agglutinative morphology based on invariant morphemes, and subsequently lacks ablaut (a superficial similarity with non‑Indo‑European languages like Hungarian and Turkish, which are not resembled in practice). It has no grammatical gender, and simple verbal and nominal morphology. Verbal suffixes indicate four moods, of which the indicative has three tenses, and are derived for several lexical aspect, but do not agree with the grammatical person or number of their subjects. Nouns and adjectives have two cases, nominative/oblique and accusative/allative, and two numbers, singular and plural; the adjectival form of personal pronouns behaves like a genitive case. Adjectives generally agree with nouns in case and number. In addition to indicating direct objects, the accusative/allative case is used with nouns, adjectives and adverbs to show the destination of a motion, or to replace certain prepositions; the nominative/oblique is used in all other situations. The case system allows for a flexible word order that reflects information flow and other pragmatic concerns.

Script and pronunciation

Mininorsk uses the Latin alphabet as used to write Old Norse and it is intended to be pronounced in very much the same manner.

An excrecent -g- may occur to disambiguate some vowel sequences.

The article

There is a single definite article, hit, which is invariable.

hit is used:

For identifiable, countable objects:
Ek finnu flaskurni auk afnemu hit hliðurni.
"I found a bottle and took off the lid."
For representative individuals:
Hit bjǫrnur vera hit mestra strangra útra hit dýrurar.
"The bear is the strongest of the animals."
Hit býrar hafisa hárurni, þó þeir né dugisa fyr toga.
"Bees have fur, but they're no good for petting."
For adjectives used as nouns, such as ethnic adjectives used as the names of languages:
hit blára
"the blue one"
hit engilskra [málur]
"English" (i.e. "the English language")
For possessive pronouns, when definite:
Hit ekra blárisa, hit þúra rauðrisa.
"Mine is blue, yours is red".

The article is also used for inalienable possession of body parts and kin terms, where English would use a possessive adjective:

Þeir sníðu hit hǫndurni.
"They cut their hands." [one hand each]

The article hit, like the demonstrative adjective þá (this, that), occurs at the beginning of the noun phrase.

There is no grammatically required indefinite article: ljóðar means either "human being" or "a human being", depending on the context, and similarly the plural ljóðarar means "human beings" or "some human beings". The word einn (or its plural einnar) may be used somewhat like an indefinite article (akin to "some" and "a certain", being used in correspondence with English "a" when the "a" indicates a specific individual).

Parts of speech

The suffixes ‑(u)r, ‑ra, ‑(r)i, and ‑a indicate that a word is a noun, adjective, adverb, and infinitive verb, respectively. Many new words can be derived simply by changing these suffixes. Derivations from the word séa (to see) are séara (visual), séari (visually), and séar (vision).

Each root word has an inherent part of speech: nominal, adjectival, verbal, or adverbial, which indicates which kind of derivation is to be understood in each case. With an adjectival or verbal root, the nominal suffix ‑(u)r indicates an abstraction: segjur (an act of speech, one's word) from the verbal root segja (to speak); skínur (beauty) from the adjectival root skín[ra] (beautiful); whereas with a noun, the nominal suffix simply indicates the noun. Nominal or verbal roots may likewise be modified with the adjectival suffix ‑ra: kongra (royal), from the nominal root kongrur (a king); segira (spoken). The various verbal endings mean to be [__] when added to an adjectival root: skína (to be beautiful); and with a nominal root they mean "to act as" the noun, "to use" the noun, etc., depending on the semantics of the root: kongga (to reign; < kongaga). There are relatively few adverbial roots, so most words ending in -(r)i are derived: skínri (beautifully). Often with a nominal or verbal root, the English equivalent is a prepositional phrase: segiri (by speech, orally); vidri (by sight, visually); kongri (like a king, royally).

The meanings of part-of-speech affixes depend on the inherent part of speech of the root they are applied to. For example, raka (to rake) is based on a nominal root (and therefore listed in modern dictionaries under the entry raka-r), whereas kambra (to comb) is based on a verbal root (and therefore listed under kambr-a). Change the suffix to -(u)r, and the similar meanings of raka and kambra diverge: rakur is a rake, the name of an instrument, whereas kambrur is a combing, the name of an action. That is, changing verbal kambra (to comb) to a noun simply creates the name for the action; for the name of the tool, the suffix -esur is used, which derives words for instruments from verbal roots: kambresur (a comb). On the other hand, changing the nominal root rakur (a rake) to a verb gives the action associated with that noun, raka (to rake). For the name of the action, the suffix -inur will change a derived verb back to a noun: rakinur (a raking). Similarly, an abstraction of a nominal root (changing it to an adjective and then back to a noun) requires the suffix -ehur, as in árlungrehur (childhood), but an abstraction of an adjectival or verbal root merely requires the nominal -(u)r: skínur (beauty). Nevertheless, redundantly affixed forms such as skínehur are acceptable and widely used.

A limited number of basic adverbs do not end with -(r)i, but with an undefined part-of-speech ending -la. Not all words ending in -la are adverbs, and most of the adverbs that end in -la have other functions, such as þádagurla "today" [noun or adverb]. Some other adverbs are bare roots, such as nú "now"; also, some have contending adjectivized and adverbial forms (e.g. the adverbial root mikil "too, too much", exists as such and as mikilra); not counting the adverbs among the correlatives, or have other forms, like eittsá "yet, still" [conjunction or adverb].

Other parts of speech occur as bare roots, without special suffixes. These are the prepositions (til "to"), conjunctions (auk "and"), interjections (á "oh"), numerals (tveir "two"), and pronouns (ek "I"). There are also several grammatical particles which must generally precede the words they modify (prepositions), such as né (not), ok (also), sáberr (only), sájafr (even).

Nouns and adjectives

A suffix -ar following the noun or adjective suffixes -(u)r (> -(u)rar) or -ra (> -râr) makes a word plural. Without this suffix, a countable noun is understood to be singular. Direct objects take an accusative case suffix -ni, which goes after any plural suffix. The resulting sequences are -(u)rarni (accusative plural noun) and -rârni (accusative plural adjective).

Adjectives agree with nouns. That is, they are plural if the nouns they modify are plural, and accusative if the nouns they modify are accusative. Compare góðra dagur; góðrâr dagurar; góðrani dagurni; góðrârni dagurarni (good day/days). This requirement allows for free word orders of adjective-noun and noun-adjective, even when two noun phrases are adjacent in subject–object–verb (SOV) or verb–subject–object (SVO) clauses:

Hit gorrur hepprani bófirni kyssu (the girl kissed a happy boy)
Hit gorrur heppra bófirni kyssu (the happy girl kissed a boy).

Agreement clarifies the syntax in other ways as well. Adjectives take the plural suffix when they modify more than one noun, even if those nouns are all singular:

rauðrar húsur auk vagnur (a red house and [a red] car)
rauðr húsur auk vagnur (a red house and a car).

A predicative adjective does not take the accusative case suffix even when the noun it modifies does:

Ek steinu hit dyrrurni rauðrani (I painted the red door)
Ek steinu hit dyrrurni rauðra (I painted the door red).

Pronouns

There are three types of Mininorsk pronouns: personal (þú "you"), demonstrative (þá "that", einn "someone"), and relative/interrogative (hvar "what").

Personal pronouns

singular plural
first person ek (I) vér (we)
second person þú (thou) ér (ye, thou: you)
third
person		 masculine hann (he) þeir (they)
feminine hon (she)
neuter or
epicene 		þat (it, s/he)
indefinite einn (one, singular they, generic you)
reflexive sik (self)

Personal pronouns take the accusative suffix -ni as nouns do: ekni (me), hanni (him), honni (her). Possessive adjectives are formed with the adjectival suffix -ra: ekra (my), þatra (its), vérra (our). These agree with their noun like any other adjective: vér grœtu hanni vinurarni (we greeted his friends). There are no separate forms for the possessive pronouns; this sense is generally (though not always) indicated with the definite article: Hit ekra (mine).

The reflexive pronoun is used, in non-subject phrases only, to refer back to the subject, usually only in the third and indefinite persons:

Hann vasku sikni "he washed" (himself)
Þeir vasku sikni "they washed" (themselves or each other)
Hann vasku hanni "he washed him" (someone else)
Hann etu sikrani brauðurni "he ate his bread" (his own bread)
Hann etu hannrani brauðurni "he ate his bread" (someone else's bread).

The indefinite pronoun is used when making general statements, and is often used where English would have the subject it with a passive verb,

Einn segisa, sá ...
"One says that..." (meaning: "they say that ..." or "it's said that ...")

With "impersonal" verbs where there is actually no item or being that is doing an action, no pronoun is used:

regnisa "rains; is raining; it's raining".

The rain is falling by itself, therefore "it" doesn't get used.

þat ("it") is mostly used with items that have physical bodies. It's also the epicene (gender-neutral) third-person singular pronoun. However, in popular usage it's usually only used when referring to children (e.g. Hit árlungrur veinisa, upp·á·grunn·af þat viljisa etaga "the child is crying, because it wants to eat"). When speaking of adults or people in general, in popular usage it is much more common for the demonstrative adjective and pronoun þá ("that thing or person that is already known to the listener") to be used in such situations. For example, in the sentence

Einn sánú segju, sá þá ekksaðrisa
"Someone just said that that thing/person is hungry",

The word þá would be understood as referring to someone other than the person speaking, and so cannot be used in place of hon, hann or þat.

Other pronouns

The demonstrative and relative pronouns form part of the correlative system. The pronouns are the forms ending in -(u)r (simple pronouns) and -ra (adjectival pronouns). Their accusative case is formed in -ni, but the genitive case ends in -as, which is the same for singular and plural and does not take accusative marking. Compare the nominative phrases hannra húsur (his house) and þeira húsur (that one's house, those ones' house) with the plural hannrâr húsurar (his houses) and þeira húsurar (that one's houses, those ones' houses), and with the accusative genitive hannrani húsurni and þeira húsurni.

There is, besides, a colloquially used purposefully ambiguous preposition, umb, which may be used as well (e.g. þágas, accusative umb þágas).

Table of correlatives

Prepositions

Although the word order is fairly free, prepositions must come at the beginning of a noun phrase. All prepositions govern the nominative: fyr Johannur (for John). The only exception is when there are two or more prepositions and one is replaced by the accusative.

Prepositions should be used with a definite meaning. When no one preposition is clearly correct, the indefinite preposition umb should be used:

þeir gango umb hit þrír frá Harpagur
"They'll go on the third of May" (the "on" isn't literally true).

Alternatively, the accusative may be used without a preposition:

þeir gango hit þrírani frá Harpagur.

Note that although hit þrírani (the third) is in the accusative, frá Harpagur (of May) is still a prepositional phrase, and so the noun Harpagur remains in the nominative case.

A frequent use of the accusative is in place of til (to) to indicate the direction or goal of motion (allative construction). It is especially common when there would otherwise be a double preposition:

Hit kǫttrur tilrennu hit músurni í hit húsur (the cat chased the mouse in [inside of] the house)
Hit kǫttrur tilrennu hit músurni til·í hit húsurni (the cat chased the mouse into the house).

The accusative/allative may stand in for other prepositions as well, especially when they have vague meanings that don't add much to the clause. Adverbs, with or without the case suffix, are frequently used in place of prepositional phrases:

hann gangu til hannra húsur (he went to his home)
hann gangu húsurini (he went home)

Both fyr and tilfyr often translate English 'for'. However, they distinguish for a goal (looking forward in time, or causing: fyr) and for a cause (looking back in time, or being caused by: tilfyr): To vote fyr your friend means to cast a ballot with their name on it, whereas to vote tilfyr your friend would mean to vote in their place or as they asked you to.

The preposition most distinct from English usage is perhaps frá, which corresponds to English of, from, off, and (done) by:

bókur frá Johannur (John's book)
hann komu frá hit stallrur (he came from the stable)
bítara frá hundur (bitten by a dog)

However, English of corresponds to several prepositions as well: frá, af (out of, made of), and útra (quantity of, unity of form and contents):

stóllur af viðrur (a table of wood)
bolligur útra vínur (a glass of wine)
lístur útra árlœskjurar útra hit fyrirkjósðygurar* (a list of conditions from the candidates)
* fyrirkjósðygurar < fyrir-kjós-ðy-(g)(u)r-ar < anterior-choose-cond.ppl-nlz-pl

Occasionally a new preposition is coined. Because a bare root may indicate a preposition or interjection, removing the grammatical suffix from another part of speech can be used to derive a preposition or interjection. For example, from maka (to do, to make) we get the preposition mak (done by) (e.g. mak Johannur, 'done by John').

Verbs

All verbal inflection is regular. Three tenses together the indicative mood. The other moods are the infinitive, conditional, and jussive. No aspectual distinctions are required by the grammar, but derivational expressions of lexical aspect (Aktionsart) are common.

Verbs do not change form according to their subject. I am, we are, and he is are simply ek verisa, vér verisa, and hann verisa, respectively. Impersonal subjects are not used: regnisa (it is raining); verisa músur í hit húsur (there's a mouse in the house).

Most verbs are inherently transitive or intransitive. As with the inherent part of speech of a root, this is not apparent from the shape of the verb and must simply be memorized. Transitivity is changed with the suffixes -ant(i)- (the transitivizer/causative) and -aks(a)- (the intransitivizer/middle voice):

vatnur sjóðisa við hundrað mǫrkurar (water boils at 100 degrees)
vér sjóðantisa hit vatnurni (we boil the water).

The verbal paradigm

The tenses have characteristic vowels: -a hints towards the present tense, -u towards the past, and -o towards the future.

Indicative Active participle Passive participle Infinitive Jussive Conditional
Past -(g)u -ðu -(r)un(n) -a -e -(r)uð
Present -(i)sa -(i)ðr -(r)in(n)
Future -(g)o -ðo -(r)on(n)

The verbal forms may be illustrated with the root segj- (to say):

segja (to say)
segisa (says)
segju (said)
segjo (shall say, will say)
segje (say! speak!; a command)
segiruð (were to say, would say)

A verb can be made emphatic with the particle ok (also, too, indeed): ek ok segisa (I say), ek ok segju (I said).

Tense

The present tense may be used for gnomic statements such as "ravens fly" (hit hrafnurar fljúgisa). The future is a true tense, used whenever future time is meant.

Tenses are relative. This differs from English absolute tense, where the tense is past, present, or future of the moment of speaking: the tense of a subordinate verb is instead anterior or posterior to the time of the main verb. For example, "John said that he would go" is Johannur segisa, sá hann gango (lit., "John said that he will go"); this does not mean that he will go at some point in the future from now (as "John said that he will go" means in English), but that at the time he said this, his going was still in the future.

Mood

The conditional mood is used for such expressions as ef ek kunnuð, ek ganguð (if I could, I would go) and ef ek veruð þú, ek ganguð (if I were you, I'd go).

The jussive mood, is used for wishing and requesting, and serves as the imperative and subjunctive:

Gange! (Go!)
Ek fregnu, sá hanni kome. (I asked him to come)
Hanni segje. (Let him speak)
Vér gange. (Let's go)
Bleze héra·þáni smárhofurni. (idiom. "Bless this mess", bless this humble home)
Ekra dóttrur skíne! (May my daughter be beautiful!)

Copula

The verb vera (to be) is both the copula and the existential ("there is") verb. As a copula linking two noun phrases, it does not cause either to take the accusative case. Therefore, unlike the situation with other verbs, word order with vera can be semantically important: compare hundurar vera ljóðar (dogs are people) and ljóðar vera hundurar (people are dogs).

It is possible to replace vera-plus-adjective with a: hit loptur vera blárra or hit loptur blárisa (the sky is blue), though this is a stylistic rather than grammatical element. However, the reverse is not true, as this does not change the inherent part of speech: styrfa (to die) does not have the same meaning as vera styrfra (to be dead).

Participles

Participles are verbal derivatives. There are six forms: i) three aspects: past (or "perfective"), present (or "progressive"), and future (or "predictive") times; ii) two voices: active (performing an action) and passive (receiving an action). The participles represent aspect by retaining the vowel of the related verbal tense: u, a, o. In addition to carrying aspect, participles are the principal means of representing voice, as either -ðV- or (r)-V-n(n).

Adjectival participles

The basic principle of the participles may be illustrated with the verb falla (to fall). Picture a cartoon character running off a cliff. Before gravity kicks in (after all, this is a cartoon), he is falloðu (about to fall). As he drops, he is fallaðr (falling). After he impacts the desert floor, he is falluðu (fallen).

Active and passive pairs can be illustrated with the transitive verb hakka (to chop). Picture a woodsman approaching a tree with an axe, intending to chop it down. He is hakkðoga (about to chop) and the tree is hakkon(n)a (about to be chopped). While swinging the axe, he is hakkiðra (chopping) and the tree hakkin(n)a (being chopped). After the tree has fallen, he is hakkðuga (having chopped) and the tree hakkun(n)a (chopped).

Adjectival participles agree with nouns in number and case, just as other adjectives do:

þeir sparu hit trérarni hakkon(n)arni
They spared the trees [that were] to be chopped down.

Compound tense

Compound tenses are formed with the adjectival participles plus vera (to be) as the auxiliary verb. The participle reflects aspect and voice, while the verb carries tense:

  • Present progressive (continuous aspect): ek vera fáðr (I am catching [something]), ek vera fárinn (I am being caught)
  • Present perfect: ek vera fáðu (I have caught [something]), ek vera fárunn (I have been caught, I am caught)
  • Present prospective: ek vera fáðo (I am going to catch / about to catch), ek vera fáronn (I am going to be caught / about to be caught)

These are not used as often as their English equivalents. For "I am going to the store", you would normally use the simple present ek ganga.

The tense and mood of vera can be changed in these compound tenses:

ek veru fáðu (I had caught)
ek veruð fáðo (I would be about to catch)
ek vero fáðr (I will be catching).

The contraction [vera + adjective] into a verb is often seen for adjectival participles:

ek veru fáðu or ek fáðusa (I have caught)
ek vera fáðu or ek fáðû (I had caught)

The most common of these synthetic forms are:

Synthetic compound tenses (active voice)
Simple verb Progressive Perfect Prospective
Present tense ek fása
(I catch) 		ek fáðrisa
(I am catching) 		ek fáðusa
(I have caught) 		ek fáðosa
(I am about to catch)
Past tense ek fágu
(I caught) 		ek fáðru
(I was catching) 		ek fáðû
(I had caught) 		ek fáðogu
(I was about to catch)
Future tense ek fágo
(I will catch) 		ek fáðro
(I will be catching) 		ek fáðugo
(I will have caught) 		ek fáðô
(I will be about to catch)
Conditional mood ek fáruð
(I would catch) 		ek fáðruð
(I would be catching) 		ek fáðuruð
(I would have caught) 		ek fáðoruð
(I would be about to catch)

Infinitive and jussive forms are also found. There is a parallel passive paradigm.

Nominal participles

Participles may be turned into adverbs or nouns by replacing the adjectival suffix -ra with -(r)i (adverb marker) or -(u)r (noun marker). This means that some nouns may be inflected for tense.

A nominal participle indicates one who participates in the action specified by the verbal root. For example, segiður is a "speaker" (past tense), or one who had been speaking.

Adverbial participles

Adverbial participles are used with subjectless clauses:

fáðuri hit harirni, hann rinnu húsini
{fá-ðu-(r)i hit hari-(u)r-ni, hann rinn-(g)u hús-(r)i-ni}
"Having caught the hare, he ran for the house".

Conditional and tenseless participles

Occasionally, the participle paradigm will be extended to include conditional participles, with the vowel y (-ðy-, -(r)yn(n)-).If, for example, in our tree-chopping example, the woodsman found that the tree had been spiked and so couldn't be cut down after all, he would be hakkðyra and the tree hakkynra (he, the one "who would chop", and the tree, the one that "would be chopped").

This can also be illustrated with the verb ríka (to rule). In the succession to the Norwegian throne:

  • then-ruler Haakon IV Fairhair was still ríkiðrur (current ruler) of Iceland,
  • the ruler's heir Magnus VI Fairhair was declared ríkðor (ruler-to-be),
  • the previous ruler Magnus VII Bjelbo was a ríkðûr (former ruler), and
  • the potential heir Agnes Hákonardottir was ríkðyr (would-be ruler – that is, if the heritage laws had been different).

The tense-neutral word ríkaður (president) is considered a separate root and is therefore not treated as a derivative of the verb ríka.

Negation

A statement is made negative by using né or one of the negative (ekk-) correlatives. Ordinarily, only one negative word is allowed per clause:

Ek né maku eitthvani hvareinn. I didn't do anything.

Two negatives within a clause cancel each other out, with the result being a positive sentence.

Ek né maku ekkurni. Ek já maku eitthvani. It is not the case that I did nothing. I did do something.

The word né comes before the word it negates:

Ek né skrifu sáni (I didn't write that)
Né ek skrifu sáni (It wasn't me who wrote that)
Ek skrifu né sáni (It wasn't that that I wrote)

The latter will frequently be reordered as né sáni ek skrifu depending on the flow of information.

Questions

"Wh" questions are asked with one of the interrogative/relative (hv-) correlatives. They are commonly placed at the beginning of the sentence, but different word orders are allowed for stress:

Hann vitisa, hvarni þú maku (He knows what you did.)
Hvarni þú maku? (What did you do?)
Þú maku hvarni? (You did what?)

Yes/no questions are marked with the conjunction veðr (whether):

Ek né vitisa, veðr hann komo (I don't know whether he'll come)
Veðr hann komo? (Will he come?)

Such questions can be answered já (yes) or né (no) aligning with the polarity of the answer, or réttra (correct) or ekkréttra (incorrect) aligning with the polarity of the question:

Veðr þú né gangu? (Did you not go?)
— Né, ek né gango (No, I didn't go); — Já, ek gango (Yes, I went)
— Réttra, ek né gango (Correct, I didn't go); — Ekkréttra, ek gango (Incorrect, I did go)

Questions may have the same word order as statements.

Conjunctions

Basic conjunctions are auk (both/and), hvárr (either/or), ekkvar (neither/nor), ef (if), veðr (whether/or), þó (but), instaðr (instead of), enn (besides, in addition to), sem (like, as), sá (that). Like prepositions, they precede the phrase or clause they modify:

Ek ségu auk hann auk hannra vinurni (I saw both him and his friend)
Veru ekkvar bjartri ekkvar kvemi (it was neither clear [sunny] nor pleasant)
Veðr upp·á·grunn·af kjósur, veðr upp·á·grunn·af eignara málur-vendur (whether by whim, or by natural language development)
Hann viljuð, sá vér gange (he would like us to go)

However, unlike prepositions, they allow the accusative case, as in the following example:

Hann handlu ekni sem jarlurni (He treated me like an earl: that is, as he would treat an earl)
Hann handlu ekni sem jarlur (He treated me like an earl: that is, as an earl would treat me)

Interjections

Interjections may be derived from bare affixes or roots: gan! (get going!), from the verbal root ganga (as opposed to the 'proper' imperative gange); umm (um, er), purportedly from the undefined preposition umb. Others are more purely onomatopoietic, like á ('oh!').

Word formation

The derivational morphology uses a large number of lexical and grammatical affixes. These, along with compounding, decrease the memory load of the language, as they allow for the expansion of a relatively small number of basic roots into a large vocabulary. For example, the root sé- (see) can be regularly derived into forms which corresponds to several dozen English words: see (saw, seen), sight, blind, vision, visual, visible, nonvisual, invisible, unsightly, glance, view, vista, panorama, observant etc., though there are also separate roots for some of these concepts.

Numbers

Numerals

The cardinal numerals are:

nul (zero)
einn (one)
tveir (two)
þrír (three)
fjórir (four)
fimm (five)
sex (six)
sjau (seven)
átján (eight)
níu (nine)
tigr (ten)
hundrað (one hundred)
þúsund (one thousand)

These are grammatically numerals, not nouns, and as such do not take the accusative case suffix. However, einn (and only einn) is sometimes used adjectivally or demonstratively, meaning "a certain", and in such cases it may take the plural affix -ar, just as the demonstrative pronoun þá does:

einnar ljóðar
"certain people";
þeir rinnu einnar eptir hit annarrâr
"they ran some after others".

In such use einn is irregular in that it doesn't take the accusative affix -ni in the singular, but does in the plural:

sumrni einn þóttrurni
"some particular idea",

but

einnar þingurar komu til·í einnarni hǫndarni, annarrâr til·í annarrârni hǫndurar
"some objects come into certain hands, others into other hands".

Higher numbers

At numbers beyond the thousands, the roots þúsundionur (million) and miliardur (milliard) are used. Beyond this there are two systems: A billion in most English-speaking countries is different from a billion in most other countries (109 vs. 1012 respectively; that is, a thousand million vs. a million million). The root tveirilionur is likewise ambiguous, and is deprecated for this reason. An unambiguous system based on adding the suffix -ilionur to numerals is generally used instead, sometimes supplemented by a second suffix -iliardur:.

106: þúsundilionur
109: þúsundiliardur (or þúsund þúsundilionurar)
1012: tveirilionur
1015: tveiriliardur (or þúsund tveirilionurar)
1018: þrírilionur
1021: þríriliardur (or þúsund þrírilionurar)
etc.

Note that these forms are grammatically nouns, not numerals, and therefore cannot modify a noun directly: þúsund ljóðarni (a thousand people [accusative]) but þúsundilionurni af ljóðar (a million people [accusative]). An unambiguous international system is also provided by the metric prefixes, and the nonce numerals grauð (þúsundilionur) and hór (þúsundiliardur) are occasionally derived from them: grauður ljóðarni (a million people).

Compound numerals and derivatives

Numerals are written together as one word when their values are multiplied, and separately when their values are added (tveirtigr 20, tigr tveir 12, tveirtigr tveir 22). Ordinals are formed with the adjectival suffix -ra, quantities with the nominal suffix -(u)r, multiples with -fald-, fractions with ‑and‑, collectives with ‑samr‑, and repetitions with the root ‑fyr‑.

sexhundrað sjautigr fimm (675)
þrírra (third [as in first, second, third])
þríri (thirdly)
tveirtigrur (a score [20])
tveirfaldra (double)
fjórirandur (one fourth, a quarter)
tveirsamri (by twos)
tveirfyri (twice)

The particle upp·á is used to mark distributive numbers, that is, the idea of distributing a certain number of items to each member of a group:

Ek gefu hit þeir upp·á þrír eplirarni - or - Eplirarni ek gefu hit þeir upp·á þrír
I gave [to] them three apples each

Note that particle upp·á forms a phrase with the numeral þrír and is not a preposition for the noun phrase þrír eplirarni, so it does not prevent a grammatical object from taking the accusative case.

Comparisons

Comparisons are made with the adverbial correlatives sá·víðr/sem·sá ... sem (as ... as), the adverbial roots meira (more) and mestra (most), the antonym prefix ekk-, and the preposition svá·líka (than):

Ek skrifisa sem·sá góðri sem þú (I write as well as you)
Þá verisa meira góðra svá·líka þágur (this one is better than that one)
Þágur verisa hit mestra góðra (that's the best)
Hit ekra verisa ekkmeira dýrrira svá·líka het þúra (mine is less expensive than yours)

Implied comparisons are made with fjǫlra (very) and mikilra (too [much]).

Phrases like "The more people, the smaller the portions" and "All the better!" are translated using jo and sári ("thus") in place of "the":

Jo meira af ljóðarni, sári ekkmeira stórrâr hit stykkurar (The more people, the smaller the portions)
Sári meira góðri! (All the better!)

Word order

Mininorsk has a fairly flexible word order. However, word order does play a role, even if a much lesser role than it does in English. For example, the negative particle ne generally comes before the element being negated; negating the verb has the effect of negating the entire clause (or rather, there is ambiguity between negating the verb alone and negating the clause):

Ek né gangu 'I didn't go'
Ek né gangu, ek tilbakra komu 'I didn't go, I came back'
Né ek gangu or gangu né ek 'it wasn't me who went'
Ek gangu né til hit stallrur þó húsini 'I went not to the stable but home'.

However, when the entire clause is negated, the né may be left till last:

Ek gangu né 'I went not'.

The last order reflects a typical topic–comment (or theme–rhyme) order: Known information, the topic under discussion, is introduced first, and what one has to say about it follows. (I went not: As for my going, there was none.) For example, yet another order, né gangu ek, would suggest that the possibility of not having gone was under discussion, and ek is given as an example of one who did not go.

Fyrrárri ek útfljúgu í Italialandur
'Last year I travelled in Italy' (Italy was the place I travelled in)
Í Italialandur ek útfljúgu fyrrárri
'I vacationed in Italy last year' (last year was when I went)
Í Italialandur fyrrárri ek útfljúgu
'In Italy last year I travelled' (travelling is why I went)
Í Italialandur fyrrárri útfljúgu ek
'In Italy last year [I] travelled I' (I am the one who went)

The noun phrase

Within a noun phrase, either the order adjective–noun or noun–adjective may occur, though the former is somewhat more common. Less flexibility occurs with numerals and demonstratives, with numeral–noun and demonstrative–noun being the norm, as in English.

Blára loptur 'a blue sky'
Þá loptur 'that sky'
Þá blára loptur 'that blue sky'
Sjau blárâr lopturar 'seven blue heavens'

Adjective–noun order is much freer. With simple adjectives, adjective–noun order predominates, especially if the noun is long or complex. However, a long or complex adjective typically comes after the noun, in some cases parallel to structures in English, as in the second example below:

Ljóður armrsálra auk fjǫlrari hafasóttra 'a petty and extremely greedy person'
Andlitur fullra af nǫrrskarðurar 'a face full of scars'
Þóttrur þverra þó eittsá verkryðra* 'a fancyful but still plausible idea'
* verkryðra < verk-r<y>ð-ra < work-cond<cond.ppl>-adjz

Adjectives also normally occur after correlative nouns. Again, this is one of the situations where adjectives come after nouns in English:

Happu eitthvar útlandra 'something strange happened'
Né allr bjartriðrisa verisa aðallsteinnur 'not everything shiny is a jewel'

Changing the word order here can change the meaning, at least with the correlative ekkur 'nothing':

Hann etagu ekkurni smarrani 'he ate nothing little'
Hann etagu smarrani ekkurni 'he ate a little nothing'

With multiple words in a phrase, the order is typically demonstrative/pronoun–numeral–(adjective/noun):

Ekrâr tveir fjǫlrarâr vinurar ~ ekrâr tveir vinurar fjǫlrarâr 'my two great friends'.

However, the article hit comes precedes a noun phrase:

Hit blára loptur "the blue sky"

In prepositional phrases, the preposition is required to come at the front of the noun phrase (that is, even before the article hit), though it is commonly replaced by turning the noun into an adverb:

Til hit loptur 'to the sky' or loptrini 'skywards', never loptur til*

Constituent order

Constituent order within a clause is generally free, apart from copular clauses.

The default order is subject–verb–object (SVO), though any order may occur, with subject and object distinguished by case, and other constituents distinguished by prepositions:

Hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni 'the dog chased/hunted the cat'
Hit kǫttrurni tilrennu hit hundur
Tilrennu hit hundur hit kǫttrurni
Tilrennu hit kǫttrurni hit hundur
Hit hundur hit kǫttrurni tilrennu
Hit kǫttrurni hit hundur tilrennu

The expectation of a topic–comment (theme–rheme) order apply here, so the context will influence word order: in Hit kǫttrurni tilrennu hit hundur, the cat is the topic of the conversation, and the dog is the news; in Hit hundur hit kǫttrurni tilrennu, the dog is the topic of the conversation, and it is the action of chasing that is the news; and in Tilrennu hit hundur hit kǫttrurni, the action of chasing is already the topic of discussion.

Context is required to tell whether

Hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni í hit garðrur

means the dog chased a cat which was in the garden, or there, in the garden, the dog chased the cat. These may be disambiguated with

Hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni, sá veru í hit garðrur
'The dog chased the cat, which was in the garden'

and

Í hit garðrur, hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni
'In the garden, the dog chased the cat'.

Of course, if it chases the cat into the garden, the case of 'garden' would change:

Hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni í hit garðrurni, í hit garðrurni hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni, etc.

Within copulative clauses, however, there are restrictions. Copulas are words such as vera 'be', verða 'become', staðir 'remain', and sýnask 'seem', for which neither noun phrase takes the accusative case. In such cases only two orders are generally found: noun-copula-predicate and, much less commonly, predicate-copula-noun.

Generally, if a characteristic of the noun is being described, the choice between the two orders is not important:

villrra verisa hit vindrur 'wild is the wind', hit vindrur verisa villrra 'the wind is wild'

However, hit vindrur villrra verisa is unclear, at least in writing, as it could be interpreted as 'the wild wind is', leaving the reader to ask, 'is what?'.

Attributive phrases and clauses

In the sentence above, hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni, sá veru í hit garðrur 'the dog chased the cat, which was in the garden', the relative pronoun sá 'which' is restricted to a position after the noun 'cat'. In general, relative clauses and attributive prepositional phrases follow the noun they modify.

Attributive prepositional phrases, which are dependent on nouns, include genitives (hit bókur frá Johannur 'John's book') as well as hit kǫttrur í hit garðrur 'the cat in the garden' in the example above. Their order cannot be reversed: neither *hit frá Johannur bókur nor *hit í hit garðrur kǫttrur is possible. This behavior is more restrictive than prepositional phrases which are dependent on verbs, and which can be moved around: both tilrennu í hit garðrur and í hit garðrur tilrennu are acceptable for 'chased in the garden'.

Relative clauses are similar, in that they are attributive and are subject to the same word-order constraint, except that rather than being linked by a preposition, the two elements are linked by a relative pronoun such as sá 'which':

Flýju hit kǫttrur, sá hon tilrennu 'the cat which it chased fled'
Ek ségu hit hundurni, sá tilrennu hit kǫttrurni 'I saw the dog which chased the cat'

Note that the noun and its adjacent relative pronoun do not agree in case. Rather, their cases depend on their relationships with their respective verbs. This is parallel to the rather archaic distinction in English between 'who' and 'whom'. Other sequences of case are possible, though with different readings: flýju hit hundur, sá tilrennu hon 'the dog which chased it fled'; ek ségu hit kǫttrur, sáni hit hundur tilrennu 'I saw the cat, which the dog chased'. However, they do agree in number:

Flýju hit kǫttrurra, sárani hon tilrennu 'the cats which it chased fled'

Other word orders are possible, as long as the relative pronoun remains adjacent to the noun it depends on:

Flýju hit kǫttrur, sáni tilrennu hon 'the cat which it chased fled'
Ségu ek hit hundurni, sá hit kǫttrurni tilrennu 'I saw the dog which chased the cat'

Clause order

Coordinate clauses allow flexible word order, but tend to be iconic. For example, in

Hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni auk hit kǫttrur flýju 'the dog chased the cat and the cat fled',

the inference is that the cat fled after the dog started to chase it, not that the dog chased a cat which was already fleeing. For the latter reading, the clause order would be reversed:

Hit kǫttrur flýju, auk hit hundur tilrennu hon 'the cat fled, and the dog chased it'

This distinction is lost in subordinate clauses such as the relative clauses in the previous section:

Hit hundur tilrennu hit kǫttrurni, sá flýju 'the dog chased the cat(,) which fled'

In written English, a comma disambiguates the two readings, but both typically have a comma.

Non-relative subordinate clauses are similarly restricted. They follow the conjunction sá 'that', as in,

Ek verisa vissra, sá þú hafo fjǫlrarâr órbringurni 'I am certain that you will have a brilliant success'.

Sample texts


Faðirur vérra, The Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer illustrates many of the grammatical points presented above:

Faðirur vérra, sá verisa í hit lopturar,
heilagrantiðrra verðe Þúra namnur.
Kome Þúra ríkur,
makakse Þúra viljur,
sem·sá í hit loptur, sem ok upp·á hit jǫrður.
Útra vérrani brauðurni eittdagurlarani gefu til vér þádagurla.
Auk sá·víðr fyrirgefe til vér vérrârni skuldurarni,
sem ok vér fyrirgefisa af vérrâr skuldanturâr.
Auk né fœro vérni til·í sœkjasótturni,
þó leysante vérni af hit ekkgóður.
Upp·á·grunn·sá þúra verisa hit ríkur auk hit krǫptrur,
auk hit ærur eittmeirala.
Amen.

The morphologically more complex words are:

heilagrantiðrra
heilagr- -ant(i)- -(i)ðr- -ra
holy causative passive
participle		 adjective
"being made holy"
makakse
mak- -aks(a)- -e
do middle
voice		 jussive
"be done"
eittdagurlarani
eitt- dagur- -la- -ra -ni
every day adverb adjective accusative
"daily"
skuldanturâr
skuld- -ant- -ur -ar
owe active
participle		 noun plural
"debtors"
leysante vérni
leys- -ant(i)- -e vér -ni
free causative jussive we accusative
"free us"
hit ekkgóður
hit ekk- góð- -ur
generic
article		 antonym good noun
"evil"

Leipzig-Jakarta list

Some terms which are listed as one entry in the Leipzig-Jakarta list but have more than one distinct term in Mininorsk have become as many entries as needed to accommodate the scope of its vocabulary. Because of this accommodation to the scope of the Mininorsk lexicon, the list will have a different amount of entries than the original hundred, just as it would have needed to be for other languages, such as English.

External links

On Old Norse

On Esperanto

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