Modern Urianian, other morphology

Byntic Azurian Urianian Muna Tubenian Urianian Romani
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Phonology Verbs Nouns Adjectives etc Syntax etc Dictionary

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1. Adjectives

Adjectives agree with their heads in number and gender, but not in case. Their inflection is presented in the following table. The first two columns gives the inflection of the regular adjectives, marked (a) in the dictionary, where root-final clusters influence the comparative endings in the singular and in the neuter plurals. The others give the inflections of the different irregular classes, marked as indicated in the top row. Examples: (a) binsan - lasting, (a) cunant - female, (ai) bli - naked, (a1) by - evil.

Class(a)(ai)(a1)
Pos.fem.sgbinsanecunantebliebaje
Pos.masc/neut.sgbinsancunantbliby
Pos.plbinsanicunantiblajubaju
Comp.sgbinsanjatcunantetblajatbajet
Comp.fem/masc.plbinsanytcunantytblajetbajat
Comp.neut.plbinsanjatcunantetblajatbajet
Sup.fem.sgbinsanuztecunantuzteblajuztebajuzte
Sup.masc/neut.sgbinsanuztcunantuztblajuztbajuzt
Sup.plbinsanuzticunantuztiblajuztibajuzti

2. Adverbs

Any adjective or noun can be made to function as an adverb by putting it in the instrumental case. Since the singular masculine and neuter instrumental endings are both -i, adverbs made of nouns in these genders will be indistinguishable in form for adjectives that agree with a feminine noun. Context is needed to distinguish between them. In addition there are numerous other adverbs that are not made using the instrumental—adverbs of time, degree, etc. These are all listed in the dictionary.

3. Prepositions and prepositionals

Prepositions are largely done away with in modern Urianian, and they are virtually absent from the standard language. In their place we often use prepositional nouns, either in the locative, accusative or ablative case, requiring the referred noun to take the genitive case, or in the instrumental case (functionally adverbs) requiring the referred noun to take the dative case. The dictionary mentions a number of traditional prepositions as well, along with the case or cases they enforce on any referred noun. But using them is not considered good language, and you will often be corrected if you do.

Examples using prepositionals:

Ma zuri usi teltu ma guman - My sister lives next door to my parents. (using the locative of telt - side and the genitive plural of gum - parent)
Eddat ina tamja - Let’s go inside the house. (using the accusative of in - inside and the genitive of tam - house)
Erman kedi biri artumai - Erman jumped over the hedge. (using the instrumental of bir - above and the dative of artum - hedge)

4. Numerals

The list below gives cardinals first, then ordinals:

In the teens, a system with -tin prevails:

The tens are formed with -gan.

To form the numbers in-between, you just remove the final t of the ordinals and replace it with the proper cardinal, connected through an i vowel:

The initial i of the ordinal 9 is disregarded, and the final syllable in its ordinal compound is reduced:

Genud—hundred, is a neuter noun and declined like any other neuters. All lesser numerals in standard modern Urianian are undeclinable.

Genud also is counted like any other noun:

Ik genud, va gende, dri gende, etc. But in writing textual numbers, it is customary to omit spaces. Thus:

Smaller numbers up to 19 are added to the hundreds by linking with an -i-, originally a conjunction, which also causes both the epenthetic vowel and the plural -e to disappear. Thus:

The bigger ones from 20 to 99 require linking to the first hundred, thus:

But:

Tangen - thousand, also is a neuter noun, as are miljon - million, miljard - milliard (billion in US English) and other recent loans for the bigger numbers. For numbers bigger than 1999 it is customary to write these bigger units with spaces between them, and between the hundreds, but the spaces may be omitted in ordinals. Thus:

5. Time

Urianians today use the Gregorian calendar, but they have retained their own month names:

January = mindimin
February = endimin
March = ukamin
April = erkamin
May = brumin
June = eimin
July = sulmin
August = urmin
September = geptimin
October = drebmin
November = utmin
December = marmin

These month names are all declined as feminine nouns, except that when they are used to write a date, special genitive forms are used. Most of these are formed by simply adding a -t at the end. But ukamin, erkamin and brumin form respectively ukamnet, erkamnet and brumnet. Examples:

vagant brumnet - May 20
bimmid eimint - June 7
dritint urmint - August 13 (the Urianian Independence Day)
vaganibingid drebmint - October 25

The old lunar calendar still is in use for certain religious purposes, and is used by some Urianian astrologers. In it, a leap month is inserted every time the winter solstice occurs after the end of marmin. This month is called tymin, and its genitive is tymnet.