Ælfwine wrote: ↑22 Mar 2024 16:50
Rediscovered this. Impressive, better than I did trying to make my Western Norse flavored conlang. I especially like how you regularized the -na plural from the genitive. As you may know this was really only in Icelandic (I think the continental Norse languages used -ja there.)
Thank you . Do you mean the -na genitive plural for nouns ending in -a? I wasn't actually aware this only occurred in Icelandic. Was this a trait separating the West and East dialects of Norse?
More like a shift separating Insular from Continental.
IIRC both were common during medieval times and then were regularized in their own way (-ja probably to strengthen the weak feminine declension).
Ælfwine wrote: ↑23 Mar 2024 20:02More like a shift separating Insular from Continental.
IIRC both were common during medieval times and then were regularized in their own way (-ja probably to strengthen the weak feminine declension).
All this makes me want to work on Vínlenzka now.
Interesting. I'm trying to keep Skaalinska as more of a Continental North Germanic language, but I think I'll have to keep the -na ending as -ja would just be too problematic in Skaalinska. With regular sound changes, it would turn into -e/-æ with the potential for some consonant mutations in the stem, something that I typically avoid in Skaalinska. Final -e is also often confounded with -a so I just don't realistically see this ending surviving into Skaalinska.
You should definitely work on your own language. I'd love to see it
Demonstratives
Like other determinatives, demonstratives (with one exception discussed later) only use their genitive forms when used as pronouns, but use only the nominative/oblique forms when used as determinatives.
Denne- This/These Nominative/Oblique Singular (m/f): Denne Genitive Singular (m/f): Dennes
Nominative/Oblique Singular (n): Dette Genitive Singular (n): Dettes
Nominative/Oblique Plural (m/f/n): Desse Genitive Plural (m/f/n): Dessa
Den- That/Those/The Nominative/Oblique Singular (m): Den Genitive Singular (m): Dens
Nominative/Oblique Singular (f): De Genitive Singular (f): Dess
Nominative/Oblique Singular (n): Det Genitive Singular (n): Dets
Nominative/Oblique Plural (m/f): Der Genitive Plural (m/f): Dena
Nominative/Oblique Plural (n): De Genitive Plural (n): Dena
Use alongside adjectives
Adjectives following demonstrative determiners always take the weak adjective ending -a regardless of case or gender. When used alongside a noun, the case can be inferred from the noun’s declension
Den and its various declensions are also notably used as definite articles when before an adjective. The noun following the adjective still takes the appropriate encliticized definite article, e.g: Æg sá den gammla mannen (I saw the old man). This structure is similar to ones found in other North Germanic languages.
Because the weak ending is the same regardless of case, whenever a nominalized adjective is used in the genitive case and preceded by a demonstrative determiner or definite article, the genitive form of the demonstrative is used. Otherwise the nominative/oblique and genitive forms would have no way of being distinguished. E.G: Saknardu dena blaaa? (Do you miss the blue ones?). The verb sakna (like the verb rædas used in previously sample sentences) is always followed by a genitive noun.