conlang.phundrak.com/docs/eittlandic/grammar.org

#+setupfile: ../headers

* Grammar
** Word Structure                                                 :noexport:
** Word Classes
*** Nouns                                                             :noexport:
# - What are the distributional properties of nouns?
# - What are the structural properties of nouns?
# - What are the major formally distinct subcategories of nouns?
# - What is the basic structure of the noun word (for polysynthetic
#   languages) and/or noun phrases (for more isolating languages)?

**** Countables and Uncountables                                      :noexport:
**** Proper Nouns                                                     :noexport:
*** Pronouns and Anaphoric Clitics                                    :noexport:
# - Does the language have free pronouns and/or anaphoric clitics?
#   (These are distinct from grammatical agreement.)
# - Give a chart of the free pronouns and/or anaphoric clitics.
**** Personal Pronouns
**** Demonstrative Pronouns
**** Possessive Pronouns
*** Verbs                                                             :noexport:
# - What are the distributional properties of verbs?
# - What are the structural properties of verbs?
# - What are the major subclasses of verbs?
# - Describe the order of various verbal operators within the verbal
# - word or verb phrase.
# - Give charts of th
# - tense/aspect/mode, etc. Indicate major allomorphic variants.
# - Are directional and/or locational notions expressed in the verb or
# - verb phrase at all?
#   - Is this operation obligatory, i.e. does one member of the
#     paradigm have to occur in every finite verb or verb phrase?
#   - Is it productiv
#     verb stems, and does it have the same meaning with each one?
#     (Nothing is fully productive, but some operations are more
#     productive than others.)
#   - Is this operation primarily coded morphologically, analytically,
#     or lexically? Are there any exceptions to the general case?
#   - Where in the verb phrase or verbal word is this operation likely
#     to appear? Can it occur in more than one place?
**** Verbal Structure
**** Verbal Derivations
**** Verbal Inflexions
*** Modifiers
# - If you posit a morphosyntactic category of adjectives, give
#   evidence for not grouping theseforms with the verbs or nouns. What
#   characterizes a form as being an adjective in this language?
# - How can you characterize semantically the class of concepts coded
#   by this formal category?
# - Do adjectives agr
#   noun class)?
# - What kind of syst
# - How high can a fluent native speaker count without resorting
#   either to words from another language or to a generic word like
#   /many/? Exemplify the system up to this point.
# - Do numerals agree with their head nouns (number, case, noun
#   class, ...)?
**** Descriptive Adjectives                                           :noexport:
**** Non-Numeral Quantifiers                                          :noexport:
**** Numerals

*** Adverbs                                                           :noexport:
# - What characterikes a form as being an adverb in this language? If
#   you posit a distinct class of adverbs, argue for why these forms
#   should not be treated as nouns, verbs, or adjectives.
# - For each kind of adverb listed in this section, list a few members
#   of the type, and specify whether there are any restrictions
#   relavite to that type, e.g. where they can come in a clause, any
#   morphemes common to the type, etc.
# - Are any of these classes of adverbs related to older
#   complement-taking (matrix) verbs?
*** Adpositions                                                       :noexport:
*** Grammatical Particules                                            :noexport:
** Constituants Order Typology                                    :noexport:
*** Constituants Order in Main Clauses
# - What is the neutral order of free elements in the unit?
# - Are there variations?
# - How do the variant orders function?
# - Specific to the main clause constituent order: What is the
#   pragmatically neutral order of constituents (A/S, P, and V) in
#   basic clauses of the language?
*** Constituants Order in Nominal Clauses
# - Describe the order(s) of elements in the noun phrase.
*** Constituants Order in Verbal Clauses
# - Where do auxliari
#   verb?
# - Where do verb-phrase adverbs occur with respect to the verb and
#   auxiliaries?
*** Adpositional Phrases
# - Is the language dominantly prepositional or post-positional? Give
#   examples.
# - Do many adpositions come from nouns or verbs?
*** Comparatives
# - Does the language have one or more grammaticalized comparative
#   constructions? If so, what is the order of the standard, the
#   marker and the quality by which an item is compared to the
#   standard?
*** Questions
# - In yes/no questions, if there is a question particle, where does
#   it occur?
# - In information qu
** Structure of a Nominal Group
*** Composed Words                                               :noexport:
# - Is there noun-noun compounding that results in a noun (e.g.
#   /windshield/)?
# - How do you know it is compounding?
# - Is there noun-verb (or verb-noun) compounding that results in a
#   noun (e.g. /pickpocket/, /scarecrow/)?
# - Are these process
#   can-opener)? How common is compounding?
*** Denominalization                                             :noexport:
# - Are there any processes (productive or not) that form a verb from
#   a noun?
# - An adjective from a noun?
# - An adverb from a noun?
*** Numbers                                                      :noexport:
# - Is number express
# - Is the distinction between singular and non-singular obligatory,
#   optional, or completely absent in the noun phrase?
# - If number marking is “optional”, when does it tend to occur, and
#   when does it tend not to occur?
# - If number marking is obligatory, is number overtly expressed for
#   all noun phrases or only some subclasses of noun phrases, such as
#   animate?
# - What non-singular distinctions are there?
*** Grammatical Case
# - Do nouns exhibit morphological case?
# - If so, what are the cases? (The functions of the cases will be
#   elaborated in lat
**** Cases in Modern Eittlandic
Although seldom visible, as described in [[file:./syntax.md#case-marking][Case Marking]], cases still
remain part of the Eittlandic grammar, expressed through its syntax
rather than explicit marking on its nouns and adjectives. Four
different grammatical cases exist in this language: the *nominative*,
*accusative*, *genitive*, and *dative* case.
- The *nominative* case represents the subject of a sentence, that is,
  the subject of intransitive clauses and the agent of transitive
  clauses. As we’ll see below, it is morphologically marked only in
  dialects other than Standard Eittlandic, and only if the word is a
  strong masculine word.
- On the other hand *accusative*, like Old Norse, usually marks the
  object of a verb, but it can also express time-related ideas such as
  a duration in time, or after some prepositions. It is also the
  default case when a noun has no clear status in a clause, and it can
  as such serve as a vocative.
- *Dative* usually marks indirect objects of verbs in Old Norse, though
  it can also often mark direct objects depending on the verb used.

**** Case Marking
Although present in Early Old Norse, the use of grammatical cases has
been on the decline since the Great Vowel Shift (see [[file:phonology.md#great-vowel-shift][Phonology: Great
Vowel Shift]]). Due to the general loss of word-final short vowels and
to regularization of its nouns, Eittlandic lost almost all of weak
nouns’ inflexions and a good amount in its strong nouns’ inflexions.
On top of this, the root of most nouns got regularized, getting rid of
former umlauts. Hence, while in Old Norse one might find the table
below presented in Cleasby and Vigfusson (1874), Modern Eittlandic is
simplified to the table following it.

#+name: tbl:old-norse-noun-inflexions
#+caption: 1st declension of strong nouns and declensions of masculine weak nouns in Old Norse
| / |        <r> |                  |                 |               |                |
|   |            | Strong Masculine | Strong Feminine | Strong Neuter | Weak Masculine |
|---+------------+------------------+-----------------+---------------+----------------|
|   | Sing. Nom. | heim-r           | tíð             | skip          | tím-i          |
|   |       Acc. | heim             | tíð             | skip          | tím-a          |
|   |       Gen. | heim-s           | tíð-ar          | skip-s        | tím-a          |
|   |       Dat. | heim-i           | tíð             | skip-i        | tím-a          |
|   | Plur. Nom. | heim-ar          | tíð-ir          | skip          | tím-ar         |
|   |       Acc. | heim-a           | tíð-ir          | skip          | tím-a          |
|   |       Gen. | heim-a           | tíð-a           | skip-a        | tím-a          |
|   |       Dat. | heim-um          | tíð-um          | skip-um       | tím-um         |

#+name: tbl:eittlandic-example-noun-inflexions
#+caption: Declensions for strong and weak nouns in Modern Eittlandic
| / |        <r> |               |               |            |
|   |            | Strong Common | Strong Neuter | Weak Nouns |
|---+------------+---------------+---------------+------------|
|   | Sing. Nom. | heim-r        | skip          | tím        |
|   |       Acc. | heim          | skip          | tím        |
|   |       Gen. | heim-ar       | skip-s        | tím-s      |
|   |       Dat. | heim          | skip          | tím        |
|   | Plur. Nom. | heim-r        | skip          | tím-r      |
|   |       Acc. | heim          | skip          | tím        |
|   |       Gen. | heim-ar       | skip-s        | tím-s      |
|   |       Dat. | heim-um       | skip-um       | tím-um     |

As you can see, a good amount of declensions disappeared from nouns,
with only four marked cases for strong common nouns and two for strong
neuter and weak nouns. The declension system completely merged weak
nouns which are no longer distinguished by gender. Strong masculine
and strong feminine also got merged into strong common.

Declensions are no longer productive in almost all Modern Eittlandic
dialects. They are still mostly used in formal and written speech, but
they are less and less used in less formal circumstances and in oral
speech. The Royal Academy for Literature, which authored Standard
Eittlandic, even recommends not using grammatical cases when using
this dialect as they are reduntand with other syntactic strategies.
While the recommendation is mostly followed, speakers still tend to
use the singular genetive declension oraly. Younger folks at the time
of writing even tend to regularize it as /-ar/ for strong neuter and
weak nouns.

One exception to declensions no longer being productive is in and
around the Hylfjaltr Kingdom exclave in southern Eittland where
speakers of its local dialect tend instead to favor strong nouns for
newer terms. Hence, while most dialects agree on “internet” (pl.nom
/internetr/, pl.dat /internetum/) being a weak noun, this dialect treats
it as either a strong feminine (sg.gen /internetar/, pl.nom&acc
/internetr/, pl.dat /internetum/) or a strong neuter (sg.gen /internets/,
pl.dat /internetum/) --- the difference is due to subdivisions in said
dialect, mainly between rural and urban areas favoring the former and
the latter respectively.

There are some regular exceptions to the declension system. The first
one, inherited from Old Norse, is the /-r/ suffix becoming /-n/ or /-l/ when
a noun ends with an «n» or an «l» respectively, hence the table below
showing the declensions of strong masculine /himn/ (/heaven/) and strong
feminine /hafn/ (/harbour/, /haven/).
#+name: tbl:irregular-noun-declensions
|        <r> |        |        |
|            | himn   | hafn   |
|------------+--------+--------|
| Sing. Nom. | himnn  | hafnn  |
|       Acc. | himn   | hafn   |
|       Gen. | himnar | hafnar |
|       Dat. | himn   | hafn   |
| Plur. Nom. | himnn  | hafnn  |
|       Acc. | himn   | hafn   |
|       Gen. | himnar | hafnar |
|       Dat. | himnum | hafnum |

During the last five centuries, the root of the word got regularized
so that only one or two forms are allowed. Due to umlaut or ablaut, it
is possible the main vowel of a word changes between its singular and
plural form, even sometimes affecting its dative form. These changes
are due to old vowels long gone since --- with most even gone by the
time of Old Norse. These changes mainly remains in a few common words.
The table below gives some examples of such irregularities. These
words are marked as irregular in the dictionary.
#+name: tbl:irregularities-root-nouns
 |        <r> |             |           |           |            |
 |            | kettle (m.) | foot (m.) | book (f.) | water (n.) |
 |------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+------------|
 | Sing. Nom. | ketll       | fótr      | bók       | vatn       |
 |       Gen. | ketl        | fót       | bók       | vatn       |
 |       Acc. | ketlar      | fótar     | bókar     | vatn       |
 |       Dat. | ketl        | fót       | bók       | vatn       |
 | Plur. Nom. | katll       | fœtr      | bœkr      | vótnn      |
 |       Acc. | katl        | fœt       | bœkr      | vótn       |
 |       Gen. | katl        | fœt       | bœk       | vótn       |
 |       Dat. | katlum      | fótum     | bókum     | vótnum     |

*** Articles and Demonstratives
# - Do noun phrases have articles?
# - If so, are they obligatory or optional, and under what
#   circumstances do they occur?
# - Are they separate words, or bound morphemes?
# - Is there a class of classes of demonstratives as distinct from
#   articles?
# - How many degrees of distance are there in the system of
#   demontsratives?
# - Are there other distinctions beside distances?

When the noun of a nominal group is not a mass noun or a proper noun,
an article must accompany it, except for indefinite plural nouns.

**** Indefinite Article
The indefinite article is /einn/, the same term as /one/ in Eittlandic. It
agrees in declension with its noun, though it is to be noted its
declension is irregular, as seen in table below. Similarly, other
numerals have declensions as discussed in [[file:word-structure-and-classes.md#numerals][Word Classes: Numerals]].
#+name: tbl:declension-einn
|      | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|------+-----------+----------+--------|
| Nom. | einn      | ein      | eit    |
| Acc. | ein       | ein      | eit    |
| Dat. | ein       | einn     | eits   |
| Gen. | einn      | ein      | eit    |

**** Definite articles
As in other scandinavian languages, definite articles in Eittlandic
act as suffixes to the noun and fully replace its declension as it has
case marking itself. The full declension table of definite articles
can be found in the table below. As we can see, the definite articles
underwent an important regularization as well as merging strong neuter
and weak nouns together.
#+name: tbl:definite-articles
| / |        <r> |               |                              |
|   |            | Strong Common | Strong Neuter and Weak Nouns |
|---+------------+---------------+------------------------------|
|   | Sing. Nom. | -(i)nn        | -(i)t                        |
|   |       Acc. | -(i)n         | -(i)t                        |
|   |       Gen. | -(i)ns        | -(i)ts                       |
|   |       Dat. | -(i)n         | -(i)t                        |
|   | Plur. Nom. | -(i)nn        | -(i)tr                       |
|   |       Acc. | -(i)n         | -(i)t                        |
|   |       Gen. | -(i)n         | -(i)t                        |
|   |       Dat. | -(i)num       | -(i)tum                      |

The initial /i/ is only used when using the definite articles as a
suffix would cause a consonant cluster forbidden by Eittlandic
phonology, otherwise it is omitted. An example of the former case is
with /vatn/ (/water/) which becomes /vatnits/ when in its definite singular
genitive form, while /øy/ (/island/) becomes /øyns/ in the same form. Like
the indefinite article, the suffix agrees in gender, agreeing either
with strong masculine or feminine words (or as established before,
strong common) or with strong neuter and weak nouns.

The use of definite articles with nouns is further discussed in
[[file:./syntax.md#definiteness][Definiteness]].

*** Definiteness
Definiteness in Eittlandic serves multiple purposes. Its most obvious
one is to distinguish between an indefinite and a definite entity, as
in English /a dog/ or /the dog/, respectively /einn hundr/ and /hundinn/, as
discussed in [[file:./syntax.md#articles-and-demonstratives][Articles and Demonstratives]].

However, definiteness is also necessary with suffixed possessives and
demonstrative.

*** Possessives
# - How are possessors expressed in the noun phrase?
# - Do nouns agree with their possessors? Do possessors agree with
#   possessed nouns? Neither, or both?
# - Is there a distinction between alienable and inalienable
#   possesson?
# - Are there other types of possession?
# - When the possessor is a full noun, where does it usually come with
#   respect to the possessed noun?
*** Gender
# - Is there a noun class system?
# - What are the classes and how are they manifested in the noun
#   phrase?
# - What dimension of reality is most central to the noun class system
#   (e.g. animacy, shape, function, etc.)? What other dimensions are
#   relevant?
# - Do the classifiers occur with numerals? Adjectives? Verbs?
# - What is their function in these contexts?
Eittlandic inherited from Old Norse a gender system divided into three
genders: male, female, and neuter. Although the number of elements
marking it declined during its evolution, Eittlandic still marks
gender in its strong nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and to a certain
degree in its articles. However, as mentioned in [[file:./syntax.md#case-marking][Case Marking]], case
marking and by extensions gender marking is slowly disappearing in
Modern Eittlandic nouns and adjectives.

Due to the presence of declensions with strong nouns and adjectives,
its pronouns, and to a certain degree different articles, it can still
be said Eittlandic is a gendered language, although it doesn’t hold
much importance in its grammar anymore. Since strong nouns aren’t
productive anymore and weak nouns lost all obvious gender differences,
we can even consider gender as not productive anymore in Eittlandic
and bound to eventually disappear. In fact, the loss of gender is even
stronger in Standard Eittlandic due to the theoretical absence of
declensions in this dialect.

In case a strong noun is used with a strong adjective, both will agree
in number and gender.

+ Examples:
  - hvítr hund

    white.m.sg.acc dog.m.sg.acc

    white dog
  - langir tungir

    long.f.pl.acc tongues.f.pl.acc

    long tongues

*** Diminution and Augmentation                                    :noexport:
# - Does the language employ diminutive and/or augmentative operators
#   in the noun or noun phrase?
# - Questions to answ
#   - Is this operation obligatory, i.e. does one member of the
#     paradigm have to occur in every full noun phrase?
#   - Is it productiv
#     full noun phras
#     one? (Nothing is fully productive, but some operations are more
#     so than others.)
#   - Is this operation primarily expressed lexically,
#     morphologically, or analytically?
# - Where in the noun phrase is this operation likely to be located?
# - Can it occur in more than one place?

** Predicates and Linked Constructions                            :noexport:
*** Nominal Predicates
# - How are proper inclusion and equative predicates formed?
# - What restrictions are there, if any, on the TAM marking of such
#   clauses?
*** Adjective Predicates
# - How are predicate adjective formed? (Include a separate section on
#   predicate adjectives only if they are structurally distinct from
#   predicate nominals.)
*** Locative Predicat
# - How are locational clauses (or predicate locatives) formed?
*** Existential Predicates
# - How are existential clauses formed? (Give examples in different
#   tense/aspects, especially if there is significant variation.)
# - How are negative
# - Are there extended uses of existential morphology? (Provide
#   pointers to other relevant sections of the grammar.)
*** Possessive Clauses
# - How are possessiv
** Verbal Groups Structure                                        :noexport:
** Intransitive Clauses                                           :noexport:
** Ditransitive Clauses                                           :noexport:
** Dependent Type Clauses                                         :noexport:
*** Non-Finite
*** Semi-Finite
*** Finite
** Grammatical Relationship                                        :noexport:
# Examplify some simple intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive
# clauses. Three-argument clauses may not unequivocally exist.
# - What are the grammatical erlations of this language? Give
#   morphosyntactic evidence for each one that you propose.
#   - Subject?
#   - Ergative?
#   - Absolutive?
#   - Direct object?
#   - Indirect object?
#   There are basically four possible sources of evidence for
#   grammatical relations:
#   - morphological case on NPs
#   - person marking on verbs
#   - constituent ord
#   - some pragmatic hierarchy
# - Is the system of grammatical relations in basic (affirmative,
#   declarative) clauses organized according to a
#   nominative/accusative, ergative/absolutive, tripartite, or some
#   other system?
# - Is there a split system for organizing grammatical relations? If
#   so, what determin
#   - Is there split instransitivity? If so, what semantic or
#     discourse/pragmatic factor conditions the split?
#   - Does the system for pronouns and/or person marking on verbs
#     operate on the same basis as that of full NPs?
#   - Are there different grammatical-relation systems depending on
#     the clause type (e.g. main vs. dependent clauses, affirmative
#     vs. negative clauses)?
#   - Are there different grammatical-relation assignment systems
#     depending on th
#   - Are there any syntactic processes (e.g. conjunction reduction,
#     relativization) that operate on an ergative/absolutive basis?
** Constructions Link                                              :noexport:
** Valence Increase                                                :noexport:
*** Causative
*** Applicative
*** Dative Shift
*** Dative Interest
*** External Possession