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Proto-Galach Grammar
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:15 pm
by SandChigger
(Summary placeholder!)
Nouns
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:00 pm
by 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.
Personal Pronouns
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:40 pm
by 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?
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 7:48 pm
by 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.
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 12:09 am
by 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....
Re: Proto-Galach Grammar
Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:55 pm
by Omphalos
Re: Proto-Galach Grammar
Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:57 am
by 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.
)