Proto-Galach Grammar

[SandChigger]

(Summary placeholder!)

[SandChigger]

How about we begin bashing out some actual details by listing how English and Russian are similar and how they are different?

Nouns

Both languages change the form of nouns to indicate number and grammatical role in a sentence (subject vs object, etc). The English system is much simpler than the Russian: two numbers (singular & plural) and two "cases" (nominative/accusative (subject/object form) & genitive (possessive form)) VS two numbers and six cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional). (NB. English pronouns also have a distinct accusative/object form.)

I propose that initially we keep the Russian singular vs plural forms and dispense with (most of?) the case distinctions (except in set phrases) and the majority of irregular forms from both languages (choosing one or the other as the new base form?).

The distinctions in English nouns I mention above are really made only in writing:

Code: Select all

       Singular       Plural
Nom. kaet  (cat)    kaets (cats)
Gen. kaets (cat's)  kaets (cats')

How likely do you think it would be for English speakers to pick up gentive case markers from Russian? (I'm thinking, not very.) Or an accusative case marker? (More likely, given the precedent of English pronouns?)

More likely we'll end up with plural marker -s slugging it out with -i/ih, -a/ya.

[SandChigger]

Nom/Subject forms:

Code: Select all

      English  Russian
Sing.
     1  ay      yaa
     2  yuw     tih
     3  hiy     on
        shiy    anaa
        it      ano
Plur.
     1  wiy     mih
     2  yuw     vih
     3  dhey    anyi

(NB. Russians will pronounce dhey as dey?)

Any suggestions here? 75/25 dice?

Gen/Possessive forms:

Code: Select all

      English         Russian
Sing.
     1  may         moy/mayaa/mayo/maiy
     2  yor/yuwr?   tvoy/tvayaa/tvayo/tvaiy
     3  hiz         yivo
        her         yiyo
        its         yivo
Plur.
     1  aur/aar     naash/naasha/naashih/naashi
     2  yor/yuwr    vaash/vaasha/vaashih/vaashi
     3  dheyr       yikh

(NB. that in English these are really determiners, of the same class as the and a. The Russian pronouns have genitive forms, but here I have listed the possessive adjectives, masculine, feminine, neuter and plural nominative forms. The third person forms are invariant.)

Here, may or maya seems a logical compromise for the 1st person singular. No thoughts on the others at the moment.

Finally, Acc/Object forms:

Code: Select all

      English   Russian
Sing.
     1  miy     myinyaa
     2  yuw     tyibyaa
     3  him     (n)yivo
        hur     (n)yiyo
        it      (n)yivo
Plur.
     1  as      naas
     2  yuw     vaas
     3  dhem    (n)yikh

(Again, dhem > dem for Russian speakers?)

(It occurs to me that we also need to work out the pronunciation rules for how each group of (native) speakers will say the words from the other language...add another thing to the list. )

Thoughts on nouns and pronouns?

[Liege-Killer]

Wow, you actually have, like, motivation or something...... lol.

I think my poor brain has temporarily overloaded from trying to dig up long-lost linguistics knowledge and make actual use of it.

Also, I know next to nothing about Russian.

[SandChigger]

Yep.

I got sidetracked, though, doing grades and other paperwork. Decided to get serious and ordered some new things on language change and mixed langs; arrived at the office yesterday but I was too fooooked to bring them home (left the office after 11:30 PM; the half moon, reflecting on the Pacific, was purdy, though, during the drive ), will do so tomorrow.

Still trying to figure out what to do with the verbs....

[Omphalos]

Found these on the web recently:

http://pt.conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Galach

http://library.conlang.org/books/fiction.html



Aw, Hell. Just see here:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp& ... 5bf9d43a8f

[SandChigger]

Yeah ... the Na'vi stuff has kinda inspired me to get some stuff up on the website.

(I haven't posted anything new there since June, but my page consistently comes up third in the Google results. )