Nouns of Eleiar

II.2. Grammar of Eleiar

II.2.1 Nouns

Eleiar has a nominal declension, which distinguishes case, number and gender. Gender is not indicated by a suffix, however, but rather by a particle placed before the noun, so that the ending only marks case and number. There are two genders in Eleiar: masculine and feminine, the numbers singular and plural, as well as the cases nominative, genitive, darive, accusative, locative and partitive. The partitive has only one form and is strictly speaking a mixture of case and number, which indicates the part of a quantity; e.g. he ate from the fish, take of the fish.

The gender particle has two forms: the masculine a becomes ar in front of nouns beginning with a vowel; compare: a siadd (folk, people, m.), ar aisis (desire, m.). The feminine particle o, on the other hand, is changed to on; e.g. o ddreon (search, f.), on erthon (brightness, f.). Combinations of adjective and noun have the gender particle standing at the beginning of the concstruction with the adjective in the middle; the form of the particle is determined by the initial of the adjective: e.g. ar árdal siadd (the proud people).

The declension of Eleiar therefore only marks case and number. The endings of the cases in Eleiar have strictly speaking only one form. Because of the different nature of the root ending the rules of syllable structure described above provide some variability. One can discern the case endings best from stems ending in a consonant. The example we use here is a siadd:

singular		plural
nominative	*a siadd*	nominative	*a siaddis*
genitive	*a siaddo*	genitive	*a siaddos*
dative	*a siadde*	dative	*a siaddes*
accusative	*a siaddach*	accusative	*a siaddachis*
locative	*a siaddante*	locative	*a siaddantes*
partitive	*a siaddu*

In comparison two examples with a vocalic ending:

a geora (horn, m.):

singular		plural
nominative	*a geora*	nominative	*a georas*
genitive	*a georó*	genitive	*a georós*
dative	*a georá*	dative	*a georás*
accusative	*a georach*	accusative	*a georachis*
locative	*a georante*	locative	*a georantes*
partitive	*a georau*

ar indare (hunter, m.):

singular		plural
nominative	*ar indare*	nominative	*ar indares*
genitive	*ar indareo*	genitive	*ar indareos*
dative	*ar indare*	dative	*ar indares*
accusative	*ar indaréch*	accusative	*ar indaréchis*
locative	*ar indarénte*	locative	*ar indaréntes*
partitive	*ar indarú*

Nominal phrases in the genitive have the gender particle in front of the main word; if both words have the same gender, the particle is used only once. Compare: a siadd Eleionos (the folk of elves); o celdón a siaddo (the happiness of the people).

Adjectives are declined like nouns; e.g. ar árdale siadde (to the proud people), a thuralach indaréch (the fast hunter, acc.). Apart from the normal the adjectives of Eleiar have two comparative forms that are made by special, unstressed prefixes:

Comparative: ce-; e.g.: cethural (faster), cecelda (happier), cércal (shurer, of arcal, shure). In front of long vowels or diphtongs only c- is used; e.g. cárdal (prouder).
Superlative: no-; z.B.: nothural (fastest), nárcal (most shure); nárdal (proudest); a nothuralech indaréch (the fastest hunter; acc.).