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--- lessons:declension_classes [2023/07/22 15:35] – [Rules for joining nouns and adjectives] morgoth
+++ lessons:declension_classes [2025/03/21 10:51] (current) – [Declension classes in longer chains] morgoth
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Agglutination, declension classes and clitics ======
+====== Lessons — Declension classes ======
-<WRAP center round important 60%>
+All nouns we learnt in one of the previous lessons were ending with consonant, so adding definite article "//-um//" wasn't a problem. But what if there were some words ending with a vowel? Then, definite article is changed to just "**//-m//**", e.g. "slave" is "snaga", and "the slave" is "snaga__m__". Groups of words that are changed similarly during inflection are called "**//declension classes//**".
-This lesson will be a step up in complexity
-</WRAP>
-===== Agglutination =====
-Black Speech is generally((incl. by J.R.R. Tolkien himself)) considered an agglutinative language. This means that various suffixes or prefixes are added to the word to make new one, either to change the meaning or to express some grammatical or syntactical feature. In lesson about [[lessons:nouns|nouns]] we learnt, that suffix "-um" expresses the definite article similar to English "the", and in [[lessons:adjectives|previous lesson]] that many adjectives are formed from other words by adding suffix "-ûrz". For example, "sigûrz" (long) from "sig-" (to stretch, lengthen). These suffices are used only for their particular purpose, and every grammatical category of the word adds its own suffix to the previous one, thus forming a "suffix chain". This lesson will start to show such "chains" on the most basic examples.
--------------------
-===== Clitics =====
-A **//clitic//** is the word that is attached to other words to modify their meaning. It may be similar to a suffix, but have a meaning as a standalone word (and even may be written separetely), but still don't have much sense in the whole sentence without word it modifies.
-==== Joining short adjectives with nouns ====
-Short, one-syllable long adjectives may act as clitics, in such case they are placed after the noun. For example, we'd like to say "fat troll", "fat" is "tûrz" and "troll" is "olog" in Nûrlâm, but to make one word we should swap their order, so it will be "ologtûrz". Word "za" (this) works similarly: "this human" may be spelled as "tarkza". In case we want to add both adjective and word "this", adjective comes the last: "this fat troll" is "ologzatûrz". Such joints also mean the words are pronounced fast without pauses between them.
-When adjective joins the noun, the definite article suffix "-um" comes after the adjective: "the fat troll" = "ologtûrz__um__".
-==== Rules for joining nouns and adjectives ====
-Joining two words may be cool and cryptic, but it may become too much cryptic, so my advices are to write them separately in the following situations:
-  * Noun + adjective joints are favorable in making new words, like names for people and places, e.g. "Lugbûrz" (Barad-dûr, Dark Tower) is literally "Tower-dark", but for some abstract dark tower it's better to spell them separately: "some dark tower" is "mush bûrz lug" or "mush lug bûrz".
-  * If one word ends with same (or similar) sound as the second starts, it's better to split them: "elf" is "golug", "old" is "kû", "old elf" would be "golugkû" but in hasty speech it will be most likely pronounced as /goluggu:/ or /golukku:/ which may lead to a confusion with "towards elf" and "know all" respectively, so it's better say just "kû golug". However this rule doesn't apply to compound words and names like "Nazgûl" from "nazg" (ring) and "gûl" (wraith), "Mauhûr" from "mauh" (warrior) + "hûr" (fierce).
-  * Similarly, if one word ends with vowel and the other starts with vowel (even these vowels do not match): "this scary orc" is  better be spelled as "za uf uruk" or "za urukuf" instead of "urukzauf", as "au" will make different sound together (/aw/).
-  * On the contrary, while spelling the adjectives before nouns is encouraged, it's better to join them to the end of the word, if adjective ends with vowel and noun starts with vowel: "large orc" is better spelled as "urukdau" than "dau uruk", to not be confused with "daurûk" (all cages) in speech. However "old orc" doesn't looks good either way "urukkû" or "kû uruk" (yet the latter is better, there is no word "kûr" in the dictionary).
-<WRAP center round info 60%>
-Strictly speaking merging two or more independent words into one long word is not an agglutination, but a synthesys, a similar process on a broader scale.
-</WRAP>
-------------------------------
+Nûrlâm has two declension classes:
-===== Declension classes =====
+  - words ending with consonants (declension class I, majority of nouns belong to it)
-All nouns we learnt in one of the previous lessons were ending with consonant, so adding definite article "-um" wasn't a problem. But what if there were some words ending with a vowel? Then, definite article is changed to just "-m", e.g. "slave" is "snaga", and "the slave" is "snaga__m__". Groups of words that are changed similarly during inflection are called "declension classes". Nûrlâm has only two: words ending with consonants (declension class I) and words ending with vowels (declension class II). Declension class is very important, as not only the articles, but some other grammatical suffixes differ depending on declension class too.
+  - words ending with vowels (declension class II).
+Declension class is very important, as not only the articles, but some other grammatical suffixes differ depending on declension class too.
-==== New words ====
+===== New words =====
-There are very few words ending with vowel to learn (probably more than half of them are listed here):
+There are very few words ending with a vowel (declension class II) to learn. Probably more than half of them are listed here:
-  * fau (snow)
+  * fau (snow)((uncountable))
   * gai (chain)
   * gau (fruit)
   * ghru (stick)
-  * glu (piss)
+  * glu (piss)((uncountable))
   * goi (city)
-  * hlu (clothes)
+  * hlu (clothes)((uncountable))
-  * hrau (flesh, meat)
+  * hrau (flesh, meat)((uncountable))
   * khlau (ear)
   * lau (year)
@@ Line 53: / Line 28: @@
   * sru (seed, grain)
   * tau (forest)
-  * zrî (joy, fun)
+  * zrî (joy, fun)((uncountable))
+<WRAP center round info 60%>
+**Congratulations! Now you've learned more than 100 words!**
+</WRAP>
 You may notice, that most of them actually end with a diphthong, so technically a semi-vowel, but nonetheless they all belong to declension class II.
-All adjectives also have two declension classes depending on if the word ends with a consonant or vowel.
+All adjectives also have two declension classes depending on whether the word ends with a consonant or a vowel.
-==== Declension classes in longer chains ====
-Every addition of suffix or clitic should be done according to declension class of the previous part. For example the word "slave" (=> "snaga") belongs to declension class II, adding adjective "dirty" ("dug") to say "filthy snaga" changes the resulting word "snagadug" to class I. Thus "the slave" becomes "snaga__m__", but "the filthy slave" becomes "snagadug__um__". On the contrary, "orc" (= "uruk", declension class I) becomes "uruk__um__" with article "the", but adding adjective ending with vowel like "sta" (= "short") converts it to declension class II: "uruksta__m__". Some suffixes are the same for both declension classes, like word "za" (this): "this slave" = "snaga__za__", "this orc" = "uruk__za__".
+===== Declension classes in longer chains =====
+Every addition of suffix or clitic should be done according to declension class of the previous part. For example the word "slave" (=> "snaga") belongs to declension class II, adding adjective "dirty" ("dug") to say "filthy snaga" changes the resulting word "snagadug" to class I. Thus "the slave" becomes "snaga__m__", but "the filthy slave" becomes "snagadug__um__". On the contrary, "orc" (= "uruk", declension class I) becomes "uruk__um__" with article "the", but adding adjective ending with vowel like "sta" (= "short") converts it to declension class II: "uruksta__m__". Some suffixes are the same for both declension classes, like word "za" (this): "this slave" = "snaga__za__", "this orc" = "uruk__za__". This behavior is similar to choosing "a" or "an" article in English, when inserting an adjective before a noun may change the used article ("a story" vs. "an interesting story").
+----------------------
+===== Exercise 1 =====
+Translate into Nûrlâm. Join the words together whenever it's possible as in [[lessons:agglutination|previous lesson]].
+  - bring two strong slaves
+  - burn the city
+  - cut the long stick
+  - eat this fruit
+  - go and see some fun
+  - nice skills
+  - three redberries
+  - sleep all this year
+  - stop the large dragon
+  - the fat meat
+<hidden show answers>
+  - thrak krul snagabolg / thrak krul bolg snaga
+  - ghâsh goim
+  - grish ghrurodhum / grish za ghrurodh / grish za rodh ghru / grish rodh ghrum
+  - throkh za gau / throkh gauza
+  - ukh agh kin mûd zrî
+  - saunîr / nîr sau
+  - krig poikarn
+  - lor ûk za lau
+  - puzg lûgdaum / puzg dau lûgum / puzg za lûgdau / puzg za dau lûg
+  - hrautûrzum / tûrz hraum / za hrautûrz / za tûrz hrau
+</hidden>
+--------------------
+==== Exercise 2 ====
+Translate these words from Nûrlâm into English:
+  - faudugum
+  - gaibûrdum
+  - glum
+  - hludugûk
+  - khlaurodh
+  - maugûrzum
+  - shranîrum
+  - slairodhum
+  - srubhog
+  - taustam
+<hidden show answers>
+  - the dirty snow
+  - the heavy chain
+  - the piss
+  - all dirty clothes
+  - long ears
+  - the dead warrior
+  - the nice person / the beautiful person / the pretty person
+  - the long life
+  - nice seeds / good grain / nice grain / good seeds
+  - the short forest
+</hidden>
 --------------------

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