This is an old revision of the document!


Grammatical person

Grammatical person shows distinction between references to participants of an action. It's closely related to set of personal pronouns and affects verbs. See Wikipedia for more information.

In Nûrlâm verb's category of person is expressed via clitic personal pronouns, and standalone pronouns are often omitted. So, if standalone pronoun is used then verb has no special ending. There are three persons similarly to many European languages. However according to popular belief that Sauron forbade using 1st person singular (“I”), only 3rd person pronouns and verbs has separate form of singular number. This part of the language was changed several times through it's history (see tables below).

Archaic Nûrlâm

Forms of clitic and standalone pronouns are the same except 3rd person plural. There is no distinction between singular and plural form

Person, number and gender English Standalone pronoun Clitic pronoun
prefix suffix
1st sing. I izg -izg
1st pl. we
2nd sing. you lat -lat
2nd pl.
3rd sing. m. he ta ta- -ta1)
3rd sing. f. she
3rd sing. n. it
3rd pl. they tak -ut

Standard Nûrlâm

Common number becomes singular, adding plural form for clitic pronouns

Person, number and gender English Standalone pronoun Clitic pronoun (verb's suffix)
1st sing. I izg izg
1st pl. we ûzg
2nd sing. you lat lat
2nd pl. lut
3rd sing. m. he ta ta2)
3rd sing. f. she
3rd sing. n. it
3rd pl. they tak ut

Colloquial Nûrlâm

Adding division in gender for 3rd person pronouns, adding number to standalone pronouns of 1st and 2nd person. Plural clitic pronoun may be added even if corresponding standalone pronoun is present.

Person, number and gender English Standalone pronoun Clitic pronoun (verb's suffix)
1st sing. I izg izg
1st pl. we izgû ûzg
2nd sing. you lat lat
2nd pl. latû lut
3rd sing. m. he ta ta3)
3rd sing. f. she na
3rd sing. n. it za
3rd pl. they tak ut

See also a verb's suffix chain table

1)
“-ata” after consonant clusters
2) , 3)
“ata” after consonant clusters
grammar_person.1589122931.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/09/07 14:48 (external edit)