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Nouns and Declension
Menzi ki Menzkaečak

Contents:
    Noun Classes
    The Cases
        Nominative Case
        Accusative Case
        Genitive Case
        Dative Case
        Instrumental Case
    Declension Charts
    Pronouns

Noun Classes
Menzpiǩi

    Nouns decline for several cases, like nouns in Latin, German, or Russian. Unlike these languages, though, Rhean does not assign a 'gender' to nouns. Instead, a noun's declension class is determined by its final sound. You can tell that heliko 'helicopter' follows the -o model, doku 'poison' follows the -u model, and ürok 'dog' follows the consonant-ending model. Rhean has very few irregular nouns.
The five regular classes of nouns are:
    1. consonant ending
    2. -a ending
    3. -o ending
    4. -u ending
    5. -i/-e ending

The Cases
Menke

    The noun cases are the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental. Full charts for the regular models of declension, and a couple of the irregular ones, are given below. Here is a short description of how each case is used.

NOMINATIVE CASE
Mošekni Menko

    The nominative singular is the base for all the other singular case forms, and the nominative plural is the base for all the other plural case forms. The other forms all depend on whether the nominative ends in a consonant or a vowel.
Singular:
     This is the unaltered form listed in the dictionary. For example: jart 'uncle', baša 'aunt', vukro 'boat', maru 'thing', kai 'wife'.
Plural:
    The nominative plural of consonant-ending nouns is formed by adding -i. Soiz 'country' becomes soizi 'countries' with -i added to the end.
    Nouns that end in -a drop the -a and add the plural -i. Nima 'time', nimi 'times' and baša 'aunt', baši 'aunts'.
    Nouns ending in -o form the plural by dropping -o for -e. Nivelo 'floor, story' and čeno 'woman' become nivele and čene.
    Nouns ending with -u never drop the -u to add anything, so they add -i as if they ended in a consonant: maru becomes marui 'things', and ibu 'olive' becomes ibui. All monosyllabic nouns ending in a vowel except -i or -e (eg. fko 'hole'), follow the -u pattern.
    Very few nouns end in -i in the singular. Even fewer end in -e. These words also never drop their final vowel; the plural is formed by adding -r: kai 'wife' becomes kair, and the plural of ekzi 'station' is ekzir.

ACCUSATIVE CASE
Obžektni Menko

    The accusative case marks the direct object of a sentence. It is also used with a few prepositions. It is formed by adding -n to vowels and nothing to consonants. Because consonant stems take no accusative ending, their accusative form is the same as the nominative.

otoǩ - otoǩ but otoǩi - otoǩin
böz - böz but bözi - bözin
nivelo - nivelon and nivele - nivelen
ava - avan and avi - avin
taksi - taksin but taksir - taksir

    Where there might be confusion about whether something is the subject or object, the preposition o can be used. This o translates to nothing in English, but it indicates the object of a verb:

Dinam ǧala.     (he/she) hates Dinam or Dinam hates (him/her) ?
O Dinam ǧala.     (he/she) hates Dinam.

The accusative in use:

Otoǩin miriš.
men-ACC see-3SG
    She sees the men.
Taksin miriš.
taxi-ACC see-3SG
    She sees the taxi.
Ǧuf mirim.
fire(-ACC) see-1SG
    I see a fire.

Unmarked accusatives, like Ǧuf above, will be shown with (-ACC).

GENITIVE CASE
Čarani Menko

    The genitive case indicates possession, or can be used with prepositions for an ablative sense meaning "from" or "out of". For all words, no matter whether they are singular or plural, the genitive case is formed by adding -a to consonants and -r to vowels (except -i singulars, which add -a).
    The genitive may precede or follow the possessed noun. It is far more common for the genitive to come first; genitive-last constructions are found in isolation (i.e. not in a sentence) or with local nouns.

Mezüzemir Republika
Republika Mezüzemir
    The President of the Republic

    The genitive is also used as a partitive, showing an amount of something:

myola čan yačoni
beer-GEN three glasses
    three glasses of beer
lumor loru
    a beam of light
Myola čan yačonin olamiom.
beer-GEN three glasses-ACC drink-1SG:PAST
    I drank three glasses of beer.

    Sometimes the genitive is used on its own to mean "any/none (of) ..." This is most commonly found in negatives and questions:

Kronor mu blova
time-GEN NEG remain-3SG
    There is no time left.

żDvežabzir ču unažioz?
invited-PL-GEN QU appear-3PL:PAST
    Did any of the people invited show up?

For possession, there is also a preposition ku 'of', used with the nominative. This is rare, appearing most often as an element in surnames:

vuneč soiz ku Tolbori
    the former nation of the Tolbor.
Mezüzemir Osikar e Ladrok ku Mušavit.
    The President of Ossica, Ladrok ku Mushavit.

DATIVE CASE
Ftukni Menko

    The dative case can be used for the indirect object of a sentence, as the recipient of something, or with prepositions. The dative is formed by suffixing -u to consonants and -t to vowels.

jart - jartu and jarti - jartit
čeno - čenot and čene - čenet
taksi - taksit and taksir - taksiru

Dešot tai krod kudyet.
girl-DAT her book-ACC give-2SG:IMP
    Give the girl her book.
Točetu vöst radyet.
father-DAT truth(-ACC) tell-2SG:IMP
    Tell (your) father the truth.

INSTRUMENTAL CASE
Utvoni Menko

    This case gets a lot of milage: it is used to show where or how something is done, or where something is, among other uses. I put more about the instrumental in the section on prepositions, because this case is almost always used with one. All nouns form the instrumental by adding -om to consonants and -m to vowels in the singular and plural. So baša, šuz, mečo, mikro, kuduz are bašam, šuzom, mečom, mikrom, kuduzom in the instrumental singular and bašim, šuzim, mečem, mikrem, kuduzim in the instrumental plural.

SIMPLE SUMMARY OF CASES

nominative (suffix -) : subject
accusative (suffix - / -n) : object
genitive (suffix -a / -r) : possessive "-'s", "of "
dative (suffix -u / -t) : recipient "to", "for"
instrumental (suffix -om / -m) : method "with", "by", "using", "in/at" etc.

Compare this with the full summary here.

Declension charts
Ǩarti Menzkaečaka

Here are the all the forms for regular nouns:

There are irregular nouns as well; most of them fall into one of the categories below. There are a lot of -o nouns that follow the -u model, due to an older form which ended in u or w. Also in the -u category are all the verbal nouns in -o. There are also syncopated nouns, which lose an unstressed vowel when a suffix is added. These are listed in the dictionary with the syncopated vowel in brackets. For example: jar(a)b 'bone' is jarbi in the plural. Syncopated nouns that lose an o or an e form their plural in -e: ol(e)g 'eye' becomes olge. There are even a few one-syllable syncopated nouns that lose a vowel and gain another: sk(e)z 'number', skize 'numbers'. Very few take some sort of internal vowel change: draaz 'house' becomes driiz. Here are the models for some of these irregular nouns:

Pronouns
Šidnamenzi

    Pronouns decline for all the same cases as nouns, but they follow a different pattern (from an older declension model). The case forms for the pronouns are:

These are used just like the cases of nouns:

Ora loǩem palbaz.
about you-INST talk-3PL
    They're talking about you.

Er yant kudye!
that(-ACC) me-DAT give-2:IMP
    Give me that!

An exception: The genitive case of the pronouns is not used to show possession. Instead, special possessive adjectives are used.

The third person pronouns do not show gender, but there are gender prefixes ban- (male) jor- (female) and on- (neuter/inanimate) which can be prefixed to almost anything: banyuš 'bull', joryuš 'cow', banšuz, 'king' joršuz 'queen', Banas 'Mr/sir/gentleman', Joras 'Mrs/Miss/lady'. These can be prefixed to the pronouns when gender must be specified:

You could also say jorliz 'you girls', or banyen 'us guys'. All these forms still decline like pronouns: bantaǩem, jorlira, ontant, joryezem etc.

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Back to the alphabet.
On to prepositions.