The Liotan Language - grammar

Last update: 14 September 2007

Grammar

Following the example of Mark Roselfelder's Axunashin, most syntactic structures are presented as formulas or transformations. The abbreviations V S O I A are used for verb, subject, direct object, indirect object, and adjective; parentheses indicate modifications or derived forms, thus V(act part) means "the active participle of the verb".

Nouns

• Nominative: the unmarked form. This case was used for both verbal subjects and objects; there was no separate accusative case.
• Genitive: the case of a noun which depended on another in some way.
• Partitive: similar to its use in Rachovian, this was used to express part of a whole as opposed to the complete whole. It was also used in certain other constructions, such as the object of a comparison.
• Dative: only used after prepositions.
• Vocative: direct address. This case merely prefixed a-H to the nominative: a-dhaobh "O brother!", and will not be discussed further.

The four numbers were:

• Singular: referred to one of something.
• Dual: referred to natural pairs (eyes, hands, etc.), and also pairs like the two horses which pulled a cart.
• General plural: referred to many of something. "Plural" without further qualification refers to this.
• Collective plural: also referred to many of something, when the things formed a group. Compare filinh "leaves" with the collective fealarra, which would be used when speaking of the leaves of a tree or in a pile.

Gender for nouns denoting living beings generally followed their sex, thus gall "man" was masculine and neile "woman" was female. Abstract nouns were often neuter; the genders of other nouns were unpredictable.

Declensions

For example, here is the full declension of feanhad "tree", which was declined straightforwardly aside from the syncopations. Note that the collective plural endings were never syncopated, so that a form like *feanhadrra was incorrect.

In this document the declensions are divided into five groups depending on their genitive singular and nominative plurals as shown below. The column headed "Vowels" shows the maximum number of distinct vowels found in the declension.

Most first declension nouns were basic vocabulary items, which were common enough to preserve distinctive forms in the partitive and genitive singulars. All of them had nominative singulars in a consonant. The typical inflections of gól "ear" and téir "eye" are declined below. Vowel lowering in this declension took place in the nominative dual and in all partitives, and may be seen in both paradigms below.

The nominative collective plurals were gualarra and tearalla respectively. The plural endings -inh and -idh were often generalised to all nouns of this declension.

Second declension nouns, which exhibited the greatest number of vowel changes, included many nouns denoting the results of actions. Again, the nominative singulars ended in a consonant. Here are the singular and plural paradigms for búig "nick, dent" (which shows the fullest range of vowel alternations) and easg bite"; the duals were búige and easga in all cases, and the nominative collective plurals were buagharra and easgarra.

The vowel in the nominative and dative plural endings could be either /e:/ or /a:/.

The third declension contained a large number of masculine nouns which ended in a consonant and neuter abstracts which ended in a vowel. One of each is declined below: cual "burden" and cunha "purity".

The nominative plurals in this declension always had the vowel /a:/, but the preceding consonant could be either broad or slender with no obvious pattern; thus cóileáinh was as valid a plural as coláinh. The collective plurals were cualarra and conharra.

Abstract noun plurals were by no means unusual in written Liotan; a plural was used for "purity" in phrases like conháinh ce nguaine "the purity of the girls" (lit. "the purities").

The fourth declension was much more straightforward than the first three, and was characterised by the slender stem consonants throughout the singular and general plural. féinh "horse" and guaine "girl" are the sample nouns; their collective plurals were fianharra and guanarra.

Most nouns in this declension were feminine, but a fair number were masculine. These masculine nouns tended to take the plural ending in /a:/, for example neilleáinh "floors", singular neill "floor".

The fifth declension, like the fourth, was formally much simpler than the others, but its constituent nouns were the most varied. Many were neuters whose nominative singular ended in a broad consonant, sometimes followed by a vowel; the remainder were vagrant masculines. The sample nouns are the masculine doc "crab" and neuter rreóch "sort, kind", whose collective plurals were docarra and rreócharra. Aside from the final -a in the nominative singular, neuters ending in a vowel (such as buara "region") declined similarly.

Articles

A noun which was qualified by another noun in the genitive case did not take the article; thus fealarra can fheanhda "the leaves of the tree", "the tree's leaves". The dative forms of the article were not used independently, but were added to prepositions to make a compound article, as will be explained in more detail later.

Degree and amount

Note that um canh thaoca, with the definite article, meant "more of the apple".

Adjectives

Attributive adjectives, i.e. those directly qualifying a noun, always followed the noun; their initial letter mutated according to number, gender and case. Predicative adjectives declined similarly, but without the mutations. For example, here is the full declension of fuar "cold" when used attributively:

Thus rruaith fhuair "a cold drink", rruaithéinh fhóiréinh "cold drinks", rruaith bhfóire "cold drinks (genitive)"; but "cold" in "the drinks are cold" was fóire, with no mutation.

Vowel alternations did not occur in adjectives in which the final consonant of the stem was always slender, for example béir "steep".

Comparisions and degrees

The suffix -(e)amh raised preceding stressed vowels other than /a a: æ/, and -(e)arr lowered them; for example fuideamh "stronger" from foid "pale", and cobarra "as green as" from cub "green".

An alternative form of comparison, which was common with long comparands and the preferred form in western dialects, used as (before vowels a-*, i.e. followed by non-mutation) before the comparand; thus um rasd as canh galla "taller than the man".

The equivalent of the English superlative, which identified a particular noun, had two constructions. The more formal construction, whcih did not use an article, had the form gall um rasd "the taller/tallest man", which was used to refer to one thing out of two or more; "the least tall man" was similarly gall choin rasd. The other construction was merely ca gall rasdamh.

Certain adjectives had irregular stems for the various comparitive degrees: oll "good", alamh "better, best"; fach "bad", éaramh "worse, worst"; sar "high", fóramh "higher, highest"; neat "low", searamh "lower, lowest".

The quantifiers could also be used as adjectival modifiers. All of them preceded the modified adjective, and thus lenited its initial consonant:

• fusd nhas "very large"
• it nhas "not very large"
• einh nhas "too large"
• geal nhas "large enough"
• eóinh nhas "not large enough"
• lleinh nhas "not at all large"

Alternatively, and commonly in the spoken language, einh eóinh lleinh were reduced to e-N eó-N lle-N: e-gcub "too green", eó-dhsaor "not red enough".

Demonstratives

Pronouns

The first person distinguished between "exclusive" and "inclusive" forms in the dual and plural; the exclusive forms explicitly excluded the addressee, i.e. "I/we and him/her/it/them, but not you". The second person distinguished between familiar and polite forms, rather like French tu and vous, although the rules for their use were complicated. The third person distinguished gender in the singular only, and a singular noun was always referred to by the pronoun of the appropriate gender; the special generic pronoun was used if the gender was unknown or unimportant.

Liotan pronouns declined for the nominative, genitive, partitive and dative cases. The genitives were prefixed to the noun with a mutation, and made no distinctions for number or gender; the dative cases were always compounded with a preposition. The forms of all of the pronouns in the other three cases are shown below.

The reflexive buir referred to the subject of the verb; it also meant "own", as with sa-dtaoc buir "my own apple", and was used in some dialects to create emphatic pronouns such as sa-mbuir "*I*". "Each other" was expressed with the appropriate dual or plural possessive pronoun and seigh, thus i-dhseigh, meon-sheigh.

Camh as a pronoun had special syntactic uses, many of which are explained under Syntax. It was commonly used as a noun, which with the genitive of a pronoun formed a possessive pronoun: sa-gcamh "mine", i-gcamh "theirs". With a descriptive noun or a demonstrative it corresponded to "one": camh chub "a green one", camh eimh "this one".

The genitives shown in the table were unstressed forms; the stressed forms were the same as the nominative, but followed by lenition: samh thaoc "my apple". A genitive pronoun took over the initial mutation of the governed noun where necessary, for example sha-dtaoc "of my apple", in which the initial of sa was lenited.

Prepositions

Most prepositions had up to three forms when used spatially: one (the allative) for motion towards, one (ablative) for motion away from, and one (locative) for rest; the "rest" form always eclipsed, and the other two always lenited. Here are the commonest spatial prepositions which governed the dative case.

Thus fia thura "into a city", feó dtura "in a city", feó thura "out of a city". dé-H "into" and feó-H "out of" meant the same as fia-H and dia-H, but described different perspectives; feó thura implied that the speaker was in the city, whereas dia thura implied that he or she was outside it.

tí and té were more general than English "on"; something described as té ndeamhta "on a table" could equally be on the underside of it, whereas fór ndeamhta was unambiguously "on the top of". té-H was a reasonable equivalent of English "off", and duir-H "to behind" was much like "past".

The prepositions which governed the genitive were all ultimately derived from nouns. Some of them were spatial: suar-N "around, about", ga-N "along", duar-N "across, over", caoth-H "beside, next to". Others were grammatical: baonh "instead of", aise-H "like", bras-H "against, despite".

The commonest prepositions which governed the partitive were lla-H "accompanied by, with" and uinh "except, without".

Prepositional compounds

The compounds were straightforward if the preposition ended in a vowel or /r/; note the assimilations in the third person singular typified by in dorr "behind it", doill "behind her", doll "behind him/her/it". /@/ was inserted between prepositions ending in any other consonant and the personal ending: adas "under me", adaid "under you", adail "under her". The ablative and locative forms of these prepositions were identical; the meaning was resolved by the context.

Similar compounds were formed with the article, in which the initial /k/ was always lenited; thus "to the" was rreacha-H rreiche-H rreacho-H in the singular and rreiche-N rreichi-N rreacha-N. "Behind the (masculine singular)" was durcha-H dorcha-H dor(a)cha-H; "under the" was adcha-H adacha-H adacha-H. The final vowels of these compounds, but not the mutations, were usually dropped in speech.

The prepositional compounds of the ablative forms of té dé feó, except those with the article, were formed on the bases téagh- déagh- feógh-; thus téaghas "off me", feóghar "out of it", but téacha-H "of the".

A preposition followed by a genitive pronoun was realised as a prepositional pronoun followed by the appropriate mutation: rreas-ndeamhta "to my table". The uncompounded rrea sa-ndeamhta was also correct, but was restricted to the written language.

Verbs

Verbs will be cited hereafter in their impersonal form when not referring to a specific person; thus mairíoch "gives". There was no verbal ending if the subject was a noun: mairí co gall "the man is giving".

The imperative, the form used for giving commands, was formed with the simple present preceded by the vocative particle a-H; the particle was often dropped leaving just the lenition. The second person singular was the bare stem of the verb: [a-]mhairí "give!". The other numbers were the same as the indicative: [a-]mhaírídhe "let us give!".

Verb conjugations

The /e/ and /a/ conjugations both had the thematic vowel /@/; in the first the consonant preceding the thematic vowel was always slender, and in the second broad. The mixed conjugation contained several very common verbs in which the consonant could be both; the conjugation of beadhach below shows the alternations.

The classification was never totally rigid, and many verbs belonged to the "wrong" conjugation; mairíoch was one such. In later Liotan the distinctions became further blurred, although the conjugations mostly persisted into contemporary Liotic.

Tense and aspect

• Background, for events subordinate to the main event. This was used mainly after certain conjunctions such as "while", "although", and so on. It used a form of the verb reduplicated with /a/, viz. mamhairíoch, syncopated to maimhríoch.
• Habitual present, which described events taking place repeatedly in the present. This was also a reduplicated form, with /e/ as the reduplication vowel; thus meimhríoch "gives habitually". It was also used to describe events regarded as independent of time, such as "snails move slowly".
• Simple past, which was the equivalent of the simple present for events in the past, surprisingly enough. The past tense was formed in several possible ways, which are detailed below.
• Habitual past, the past analogue of the habitual present, corresponding to English "used to". This combined the reduplicated form of the habitual present with the past.

Four past tense formations were found in Liotan:

• Ablaut was commoner in the older language, but had become restricted to a few verbs by the period described here: foireach "built", past of faireach; conhach "sang".
• Infixed /n/ was a common Sunovian formation which effectively resulted in eclipsis of the final stem consonant: ningeach "rolled up", past of nigeach; neideach "fell", past of neiteach.
• Changed thematic vowel, a Liotan innovation, was the commonest past formation. The preferred choice of vowel was /i:/, the Sunovian suffix for stative verbs: buiníoch "ate", tóiríoch "crawled", past of tóireach. This suffix often triggered vowel raising, as with buillíoch "spoiled", past of boilleach.
• Suffix /s/ was found with stative and inceptive verbs, for example cailíosach "shines", disgiúsach "caught sound of". The /s/ often combined with the indefinite and relative endings to give /sk/ and /st/, for example disgiúsg for disgiúsach.

Further aspectual distinctions were indicated by the case of the verbal object. The nominative (historically a distinct accusative) indicated the entirety of the object, and thus a perfective (completed) action, while the partitive indicated part of it and thus an imperfective action. Thus buiníor ca taoc "I ate the apple" implied that all of the apple had been eaten, while buiníor canh taoca suggested that some of it remained uneaten.

Adverbs

Participles

• Present active: buinealt "the state of eating"
• Present passive: buinic "the state of being eaten"
• Past active: buinísin "the state of having eaten"
• Past passive: buiníosg "the state of having been eaten"

The participles could also be used as adjectives: taoc bhuiníosg "an eaten apple".

Preverbal particles

V S >> lle-H V S
buinear >> lle-bhuinear "I am not eating, I do not eat".

If the verb took an object, the verb was expressed in the positive, with lle-N (contracted from lleinh "nothing, none") in front of the object, which was in the partitive singular. The construction is analogous to the German "Ich esse keinen Äpfeln":

V S O >> V S lle-N O
buinear taoc >> buinear lle dtaoca "I am eating no apple", "I am not eating an apple".

If lle-H was placed before the verb instead, the object was emphasised, changing the meaning: lle bhuinear taoc meant, more or less, "I am not eating just one apple, but several".

A declarative sentence was turned into a yes-no question by prefixing the particle fi-N: fi-mbuinear "am I eating?" The reply was the simple verb for "yes", and its negative for "no". The negative particle was not used after fi-N; Liotan did not recognise negative questions.

To be

These were the most irregular verbs in Liotan, with suppletive forms for their past tenses and distinct negative forms. All of these were reduced in speech as a result of their frequency; the full and reduced forms are shown below.

eich expressed qualities and attributes which were permanent or inherent; thus eich cub ca taoc, "the apple is green", implied that the apple was naturally green. By contrast dóich was used in a temporary or transitory sense, and required a different idiomatic syntax which expressed the quality as an abstract noun "in" or "on" the subject: dóich cuba feoga thaoc, literally "there is green in the apple". This implied that the apple was naturally another colour but had been made green by an external agent.

eich with a prepositional pronoun from lla idiomatically expressed the meaning "to own": for example, eich taoc llas "I own (have) an apple". If do was used instead of eich, this idiom expressed mere possession: do taoc llamh "I have an apple, which I do not necessarily own". Note also, with rrea and me, the idiom do fuin llas mean "he owes me a knife".

eich was the only verb which could directly equate one thing with another, i.e. say that one noun (the subject) "is" or "was" another noun (the predicate). The predicate preceded the subject: eich taoc eimh "this is an apple", eich taoc or "it is an apple", eich aich ceógh "a bear is an animal". If the subject was a pronoun and the predicate was a definite noun, the subject appeared both before the predicate and after it: eich or co taoc or "it is the apple".

Neither of the "to be" verbs formed participles. For the use of "to be" in dependent clauses, see Syntax.

Voice

The passive voice, which emphases the recipient of the verbal action rather than its originator, used the impersonal pronoun camh as the subject of the verb, i.e. using the -ch inflection, while the object was what would be the subject of an English passive construction: buineach ca taoc "the apple is being eaten", which could also mean "someone is eating the apple" or "one eats the apple".

The middle voice, in which the agent and patient are the same, was formed with the reflexive pronoun buir as either the subject or object (but not both!). The difference was important, since in Liotan the subject of the verb was assumed to have an active role in the action, thus "I am washing myself" would normally have been expressed as salór buir, whereas "I am slipping", as an accident, was correctly lleachaibh samh, literally "myself is slipping me".

It was possible to use both camh and buir with the same verb, in which case the meaning was of a middle voice with an unspecified subject: salóch buir "one is washing oneself", lleachaibh camh "one slips".

Quite often, a single Liotan verb with different combinations of subject and object expressed the meanings of several distinct verbs in English. For example, neiteach could mean both "to fall" and "to drop":

• neitear ca taoc "I drop the apple"; the active construction.
• neitear buir "I drop myself", "I fall" (intentionally); the reflexive form.
• neitibh samh "Myself drops me", also "I fall (intentionally)"; the ergative form.
• neiteach samh "Something drops me", "I fall" (accidentally); the passive-reflexive form.

Similarly, soicheach samh "I am being left behind", but soichear buir or soichibh samh "I am leaving myself behind", "I stay". Verbs which could be used in this way always had both a subject and an object.

Verbs of sensation

In a similar way, note ceineach uide or for "it is difficult to read", literally "it is read difficultly", and similarly lle-cheineach or "it is unreadable".

Numbers

"One" was a fully-blown adjective: nominative masculine meal, feminine meile-H, neuter meala-N. It had the connotation of "only"; note taoc "an apple" versus meal taoc "(only) one apple". The ordinal "first" was sial.

"Two" was a dual form sang(a)-H, and was thus indeclineable aside from mutations for case. It was used to enumerate things not in pairs; thus sang théirinh "two eyes" would not be used to refer to a pair, and there would be something odd-sounding about sa dhsang théirinh "my two eyes" (the dual, sa dtiara, would be more natural). "Second" was sob, related to soib "next".

The remaining numbers up to ten all preceded the noun, which was always in the singular. Their cardinal forms are shown below.

• seill-H "three" (older seill-N; the newer mutation was by analogy with "two")
• diong-N "four"
• dair-N "five"
• naib-N "six"
• niúg-N "seven"
• poir-H "eight"
• saocht "nine"
• caoid "ten"

"Twenty" was a noun cear-H, which was followed by the partitive plural: cear thaocas "twenty apples". From 21 to 39, the excess over 20 followed the noun: cear thaocas poir "28 apples", cear thaocas por chaoid "38 apples". Counting thereafter preceded in twenties, with compounds of cear; thus saigear-H "40", seilcear-H "60", and so on. "213 apples" was caoidhear thaocas seill gcaoid", literally "ten-score apples three ten".

The only other higher number terms were sim "400" and rreing "8000", both of which also took the genitive plural. "912 apples" was thus the rather convoluted sang shim taocas daircear dhsang chaoid, i.e. "two 400 apples five-score two ten".

The ordinal numbers from "third" upwards all replaced the definite article. They were formed by suffixing /@/ to the cardinal numbers, and were indeclineable aside from mutations (which were the same as those caused by the equivalent article) of the following noun: seille taoc "the third apple", dionga ghuaine "the fourth girl", caoide bhfiodh "the tenth time".

Conjunctions

"And" had two Liotan equivalents: as "and", which corresponded more or less to "and then", and daoi-H "and", which was used with the meaning of simultaneity. Thus buinear as máchar "I eat and then I write", compared with buinear daoi mháchar "I am eating and writing" (at the same time).

so-N corresponded more or less "but", like "and" but with a more contrastive meaning: buinear so máchar "I am eating, but I am also writing".

ois and llais both meant "or". The difference was that the first allowed more than one of the possibilities, whereas the second allowed exactly one. Thus buinear ois máchar was "I am eating, or I am writing, or I may be doing both", but buinear llais máchar excluded the "both". Both of these conjunctions could be strengthened by doubling them, adding the notion of "either": llais buinear llais máchar "I am either eating or writing (but not both)". Finally, lleois ... lleois was "neither": lleois buinear lleois máchar "I am neither eating nor writing".

"If" could be translated as either och-H or da-N depending on whether the consequence was realisable or not. This is best appreciated by considering the past tense: taoiríor an, och baoiníon orr "I would have seen him, if he was there" left open the possibility that he was there, whereas taoiríor an, da-mbaoiníon orr "I would have seen him if he had been there" implies that he was definitely not.

Derivation

Suffixes producing nouns

-a was another abstract suffix, producing n5 nouns: measda "sweetness", conha "purity".

Nominae agentis, i.e. people who did something, were formed with -(e)ach for masculines (m3) and -ich for feminines (f4): caonhach "fisherman", caiphich "sculptress".

Nuons denoting places associated with actions or other nouns were formed with -(e)acht (m3): buineacht "eating house", féinheacht "stable". Note also seallacht "cave", from seall "empty".

Actions and results of actions were usually denoted by the participles: feóisgealt "a scattering", soiltiúic, soiltiúisg "confusion". -eabh sometimes denoted results: caibeabh "a blow", from cabach "beates, strikes".

Diminutive suffixes were also common: -ic -(a)ith -il -ilc (all f2): filic "leaflet", feinhdic "little tree".

There were several suffixes which formed nouns denoting things. Among the commonest were:

• -aph (n5): ceabhaph "arch" (cf ceabaph, which referred to the shape).
• -abh (n5), which produced nouns denoting things, tools, and results of actions: dangabh "pillar, support", deómabh "broom, brush", geanabh "grinding wheel, quernstone".
• -aigh (n5): caothaigh "blade, knife" (caoitheach "cuts").
• -ad (m3) had a connotation of size: feanhad "tree", paothad "tower".
• -at (m3): deamhat "table".

Suffixes producing adjectives

Also added to nouns were -(e)all "-less, lacking in" and -(a)imhin, its opposite: béinheall "purposeless", ceóireall "tasteless", grataimhin "smoky", peisdimhin "sparkly".

-(e)ódh was added to verbs, and corresponded to "-able, -ible": buineódh "edible", taoródh "visible".

-(a)il was also added to verbs, and expressed a tendency: piachail "fragile, breakable, weak", related to paochach "breaks".

Suffixes producing verbs

-éach was a simple denominative verbal suffix: feóisgéach "scatters", iomhór "frightens".

-iúch created inceptive verbs, often with the meaning of "to become": boillíuch "starts to rot", saoiriúch "blushes".

Idiomatic suffixes

Parallel to -(e)abhach was -(e)alach, related semantically to -(e)all, which had the opposite meaning and required me: baoichealach meid "I don't believe you", i.e. "I take belief from you".

When added to adjectives, the meanings were "to become" and "to lose, be deprived of": uiteabhach "strengthens" vs otaloch "weakens, deprives of strength", salalach "drains (of water)", measdabhach "sweetens". These uses of the suffixes were felt to be formal, however, and the idioms with daoineach were preferred in speech.

Compounding

Note how in the last example, in which the first element is a verb, the thematic vowel of the verb formed part of the compound.