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Definition: All German nouns belong to one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. For example: Peter [Peter], Koffer [suitcase], Firma [company], Buch [book] are also nouns. Nouns in German are easy to identify because they are all capitalized. Examples in German: Our son is driving to the city by car. Unser Sohn fährt mit dem Auto in die Stadt. Sohn (son), Auto (car), Stadt (city) are nouns. NOUNS TYPES: Proper nouns are names of specific people, things, locations, or ideas: Karl =Karl the United Nations = die Vereinten Nationen Communism = Kommunismus Common nouns are names of general 'categories' of people, objects, places, or concepts: boy = Junge organisation = Organisation Countable nouns are names of anything that can be counted: 1 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com one suitcase = ein Koffer three books = drei Bücher many thanks = vielen Dank Uncountable nouns name what cannot be counted: wine = Wein air = Luft The gender is most easily identified by the noun's definite article in the nominative case: der (masculine), die (feminine and plural), and das (neuter). Masculine Femenine the man der Mann the woman die Frau the table der Tisch the sun die Sonne the rock der Stein the question die Frage Neuter the child das Kind the fire das Feuer the book das Buch AAAA 2 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Definition: In German, the articles are the main indicators of grammatical case. Articles are words mostly used before nouns. In German, articles are the key to understand the gender of nouns because they are divided in three genders. Masculine Feminine Neuter German has two numbers: Singular Plural In German the matter of grammatical gender is quite different. Gender does not depend entirely on sex. German grammar treats all these as neuter. Use das for all three. Woman = Weib Girl = Mädchen Young lady = Fräulein Adjectives with articles: Definite articles. Indefinite articles. 3 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Adjectives with Definite Articles Masc. Fem. Neut. Nom. der guteMann die guteFrau das guteBuch Acc. den gutenMann die guteFrau das guteBuch Dat. dem gutenMann der guteFrau dem gutenBuch Gen. des gutenMannes der guteFrau des gutenBuches Plural. - die gutenLeute - die gutenLeute - den gutenLeuten - der gutenLeute Adjectives with Indefinite Articles Masc. Fem. Neut. Nom. ein guter Mann eine gute Frau ein gutes Buch Acc. einen guten Mann eine gute Frau ein gutes Buch Dat. einem guten Mann einer guten Frau einem guten Buch Gen. eines guten Mannes einer guten Frau eines guten Buch es Plural. - keine guten Leute - keine guten Leute 4 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com - keine guten Leuten - keiner guten Leute Adjectives with No Articles Masc. Fem. Neut. Nom. guter Kuchen kalte Milch frisches Brot Acc. guten Kuchen kalte Milch frisches Brot Dat. gutem Kuchen kalter Milch frischem Brot Gen. guten Kuchens kalter Milch frischen Brotes Plural. - frische Würste - frische Würste - frischen Würsten - frischer Würste BBBB Definition: All German nouns belong to one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. For example: Peter [Peter], Koffer [suitcase], Firma [company], Buch [book] are also nouns. Nouns in German are easy to identify because they are all capitalized. Examples in German: 5 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Our son is driving to the city by car. Unser Sohn fährt mit dem Auto in die Stadt. Sohn (son), Auto (car), Stadt (city) are nouns. NOUNS TYPES: Proper nouns are names of specific people, things, locations, or ideas: Karl =Karl the United Nations = die Vereinten Nationen Communism = Kommunismus Common nouns are names of general 'categories' of people, objects, places, or concepts: boy = Junge organisation = Organisation Countable nouns are names of anything that can be counted: one suitcase = ein Koffer three books = drei Bücher many thanks = vielen Dank Uncountable nouns name what cannot be counted: 6 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com wine = Wein air = Luft The gender is most easily identified by the noun's definite article in the nominative case: der (masculine), die (feminine and plural), and das (neuter). Masculine Femenine the man der Mann the woman die Frau the table der Tisch the sun die Sonne the rock der Stein the question die Frage Neuter the child das Kind the fire das Feuer the book das Buch CCC Definition: Pronouns replace or stand for a noun and generally they take the place of a noun already mentioned in the speech or text. Their behaviour is very similar to nouns. They change their form according to gender, number and case (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive). All these three factors can affect the pronoun. For example: Personal Pronouns (refer to the persons speaking, the persons spoken to, or the persons or things spoken about), Relative Pronouns (connect parts of sentences), 7 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Reflexive Pronouns (in which the object of a verb is being acted on by verb's subject), demonstrative, and interrogative pronouns. The pronouns are divided in direct object and indirect object: Direct object pronouns: Take the place of the direct object nouns. Examples in German: “I see a woman”, “a woman” can be replaced in English by the direct object pronoun “her”, so it would be “I see her”, the same thing happens in German: “Ich sehe eine Frau” becomes “Ich sehe sie”. Note: Direct object pronoun in German is associated with the accusative case: Singular Direct Object Pronouns me mich you (familiar) dich you (formal) Sie him, her, it ihn, sie, es Plural Direct Object Pronouns us uns 8 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com you (familiar) euch you (formal) Sie them sie Indirect object pronouns: are used to replace nouns (people or things) in a sentence, In English usually it is preceded by a preposition. Examples in German: “I give the book to Schneider”, the name “Schneider(Taylor)” is an indirect object noun, to replace it with a pronoun we would say in English “her”, in German we would say “ihr”. Singular Indirect Object Pronouns to me mir to you (familiar) dir to you (familiar) Ihnen to him, to her, to it ihm, ihr, ihm Plural Indirect Object Pronouns to us uns to you (familiar) euch to you (formal) Ihnen to them ihnen 9 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com DDD Definition: Prepositions define relationships between words in the sentence. The case of the object is determined by the preposition, or by the preposition and how it is used. Certain prepositions have objects in only one case; accusative, dative, or even genitive. Other prepositions can have objects in either accusative or dative case. Examples in German: Vienna is not in Switzerland. Wien ist nicht in der Schweiz. The train arrives at 11:30. Der Zug kommt um elf Uhr dreißig. This is a hot coffee without sugar. Das ist ein heißer Kaffee ohne Zucker. Accusative/Dative Case: at, to an on auf behind hinter in, (into) in beside neben 10 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com above, over über under unter before vor between zwischen Examples in German: Ich sitze in einem großen Zimmer. Ich trete in ein großes Zimmer hinein. Er steht zwischen dem Studenten und dem Professoren. Sie schleicht zwischen den Studenten und den Professoren. Accusative Case: until bis through durch along entlang for für against gegen without ohne at, around um against wider Examples in German: 11 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Wir trennen uns jetzt bis Freitag. (until) Wir fahren nur bis Leipzig zusammen. (to) Gegen Frühling wird es allmählich wärmer. (toward) EEE Definition: German verbs are words that describe a state of being or an action. In German verbs are categorized into three categories: Weak verbs: do not change the stem vowel in the past tense and the past participle and they’re considered like regular verbs in English. Examples in German: to work(arbeiten) to play(spielen) Strong verbs: do change the stem vowel in both the past tense and the past participle. Examples in German: to speak(sprechen) to drive, go(fahren) 12 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Mixed verbs: contain parts of both weak and strong verbs. They’re used very often and therefore they should not be overlooked. Examples in German: to bring(bringen) to send(senden) FFFColors in German Die Farben beige beige black schwarz blue blau brown braun dark blue gold dunkel blau gold green grün 13 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com grey grau light blue hell blau orange orange pink rosa purple violett / lila / purpur red rot silver silber turquoise türkis white weiß yellow gelb GGGG Top 20 German Verbs Conjugator: 14 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com to be sein to have haben to become werden to be able, can können to have to müssen to want (to) to like (to) mögen to know to make, do machen to be called heißen to say, tell to go wollen wissen ought to sollen sagen gehen to see sehen to give geben to come to let, allow kommen lassen to find finden to stay bleiben to take nehmen GGG A pronoun in German as well as in English is like a shortcut to refer to a noun, a word that stands for or represents a noun or noun phrase, a pronoun is identified only in the context of the sentence in which it is used. So you must have a prior idea about who "he or she" "er or sie" is. In English we find "I, her, what, that, his", In German pronouns use is governed by cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive), number and gender. All these three factors can affect the pronoun. Types of pronouns include personal pronouns (refer to the persons speaking, the persons spoken to, or the persons or things spoken about), indefinite pronouns, relative (connect parts of sentences), reciprocal or reflexive pronouns (in which the object of a verb is being acted on by verb's subject), demonstrative, and interrogative pronouns. German Personal Pronouns 15 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com The personal (subject) pronouns in German are (ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr, Sie, sie.), and make the equivalent of (I, you, he, she, it, we, you people, you all, they) in English, usually they take the nominative form, since they’re the subject of the sentence. They’re very important and therefore they must be memorized by heart. I have a pen = Ich habe einen Kugelschreiber. Personal Pronouns in German Singular I ich you (familiar) du you (formal) 16 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Sie he, she, it er, sie, es Plural we wir you (familiar) ihr you (formal) Sie they 17 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com sie German Object Pronouns Object pronouns replace the object of a sentence; direct object pronouns take the place of the direct object nouns, let’s take this example “I see a man”, “a man” can be replaced in English by the direct object pronoun “him” and not “he”, so it would be “I see him”, the same thing happens in German: Ich sehe einen Mann becomes Ich sehe ihn. Note that the direct object pronoun in German is associated with the accusative case: Direct Object Pronouns in German Singular me mich 18 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com you (familiar) dich you (formal) Sie him, her, it ihn, sie, es Plural us uns you (familiar) 19 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com euch you (formal) Sie them sie The indirect object pronouns (IOP) are used to replace nouns (people or things) in a sentence to which the action of the verb occurs. In English usually it is preceded by a preposition, “I give the book to Katja”, the name “Katja” is an indirect object noun, to replace it with a pronoun we would say in English “her”, in German we would say “ihr”, note that since the IOP is associated with the dative, the preposition “to” that we would usually use in English is not used in German, or rather we would say that it’s mixed with the pronoun (look at the table below to understand the concept better), for example “to her” in German will become one word “ihr”. Indirect Object Pronouns in German Singular 20 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com to me mir to you (familiar) dir to you (familiar) Ihnen to him, to her, to it ihm, ihr, ihm Plural to us 21 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com uns to you (familiar) euch to you (formal) Ihnen to them ihnen German Possessive Pronouns The possessive is another aspect that you need to master in German, the possessive pronouns indicate ownership and they replace a noun just like in English, example: “it is my house” becomes “it is mine”. but while in English you can use “mine” to the singular and feminine, in German you have to add an “e” to for the feminine, 22 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Possessive Pronouns in German Singular mine mein/e yours mein/e yours (formal) Ihr/e his, hers, its sein/e 23 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Plural our unser/e yours (familiar) eur/e yours (formal) Ihr/e theirs ihr/e 24 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Now we will look at possessive adjectives, which are used more than the pronouns we’ve seen above. And since we’re talking about “adjectives” it means that they will take different forms in different cases. For example let’s have a look at “my” and “our” in German: Possessive Adjectives in German Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive Masculine mein 25 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com meinen meinem meines Feminine meine meine meiner meiner Neuter 26 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com mein mein meinem meines Plural meine meine meinen 27 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com meiner Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive Masculine unser uns(e)ren 28 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com uns(e)rem uns(e)res Feminine uns(e)re uns(e)re uns(e)rer uns(e)rer Neuter unser 29 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com unser uns(e)rem uns(e)res Plural uns(e)re uns(e)re uns(e)ren uns(e)rer 30 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Note that we add an “e” when we deal with the feminine, either in the singular or the plural; I put it between parentheses above. As we have learned in the verbs section, reflexive verbs express an action that acts upon the subject, and with the reflexive verbs you will find reflexive pronouns, which are placed after of the conjugated verb, for example: Ich washe mich (I wash myself). Ich stelle mir vor (I imagine “myself”). Note that these pronouns have two forms, one with the accusative and another with the dative. When to use each one of them will depend on the verb, some reflexive verbs are associated with the accusative, and some others are associated with the dative, you can check the verbs page to learn more. German Reflexive Pronouns Accusative myself mich yourself (familiar) dich 31 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com yourself (formal) sich himself, herself, itself sich ourselves uns yourselves (familiar) euch yourselves (formal) sich 32 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com themselves sich Dative myself mir yourself (familiar) dir yourself (formal) sich 33 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com himself, herself, itself sich ourselves uns yourselves (familiar) euch yourselves (formal) sich themselves sich 34 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com A brief summery of the pronouns we’ve learned so far: German Pronouns nominative accusative dative genitive 1st singular 35 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com ich mich mir mein- 2nd singular du dich dir dein- 36 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com 3rd singular feminine sie sie ihr ihr- 3rd singular masculine er ihn ihm 37 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com sein- 3rd singular neuter es es ihm sein- 1st plural wir uns 38 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com uns unser- 2nd plural ihr euch euch eur- 3rd plural sie 39 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com sie ihnen ihr- formal (singular and plural) Sie Sie Ihnen Ihr- German Demonstrative Pronouns 40 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Demonstratives usually refer to a previously mentioned noun in a sentence, just like adjectives they must agree with the gender and number of the noun. The equivalent to them in English would be “this/these”. German Demonstratives masculine feminine neuter plural Nominative case 41 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com dieser diese dieses diese this/ these Accusative case diesen diese dieses 42 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com diese this/ these Dative case diesem dieser diesem diesen to this/ these Genitive cases 43 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com dieses dieser dieses dieser of this/ these Other Pronouns: Relative Pronouns: in German they are der, die, das (who, that, which), wer, was (who, that) and welcher (who, that). The gender, number, and case of the relative pronoun should agree with its antecedent. Interrogative Pronouns: the most important in German are: wer (who), wen (whom), wem (to whom), wessen (whose), was (what), welcher (which). 44 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Indefinite pronouns are: all- (all), ander- (other), einig- (one), etwas (some), jed- (each), kein- (no), nichts (nothing), man (we, one), niemand (no one). HHHH Nouns, Adjectives & Personal Pronouns 1. introduction ?1.1 No definite or indefinite article ?1.2 Plurals of nouns and pronouns ?1.3 Personal pronouns 2. Nouns ?2.1 Number ?2.2 Gender ?2.3 Case ?2.3.1 Genitive ?2.4 Compound nouns ?2.5 Summary 3. Adjectives ?3.1 Position of adjectives ?3.2 Comparison Appendix: Vocabulary 1. Introduction We have already come across personal pronouns and some nouns on the Verbs page; we shall look more closely at nouns and pronouns on this page as well as adjectives. From the Verbs page we have learnt the following three things. 1.1 No definite or indefinite articles It will have been noticed that there are no definite or indefinite articles in Outidic. Dr Outis did at first consider retaining a definite article because ancient Greek had it; but he was concerned that different languages do not use their definite article in the same way, for example, that the use of the definite article is rather different in English, in French and in Ancient Greek. 45 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com He was also aware that not only Latin but Russian, Turkish and some other languages managed with no definite or indefinite article and he, therefore, decided that in a language to facilitate communication between statesmen, merchants and scholar of different languages it would be simpler to dispense with articles entirely. 1.2 Plurals of nouns and pronouns We saw also that plurals of nouns and pronouns are formed with the suffix -as, e.g. keir hand ~ keiras hands kun dog ~ kunas dogs ut he, she, it ~ utas they (See also subsection below). 1.3 Personal pronouns We saw the personal pronouns used as subjects of verbs. We shall find also that the same pronouns may be used as direct objects of verbs. To summarize, the pronouns are: SingularPlural Probable etymology 1st person em I, me emas we, us em ? ?µ? (emé) me, ?µ?? (emoû) of me, ?µ?? (emoí) to me; emas ? ?µe?? (hemeîs) we, ?µ?? (hemâs) us 2nd person um thou, thee; you ye, you umas umas ? ?µe?? (humeîs) ye, you, ?µ?? (humâs) you; um is a back formation from umas 1st person ut he, him; she, her; it they, them utas Stem ut abstracted from Greek 3rd person pronoun supplied by: 46 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com ??t?? (hoûtos) this in the nominative case a?t?? (autón) self in the oblique cases Top 2. Nouns Students of Greek and Latin will know that nouns ere characterized by number, gender and case; so let us consider these three properties below. 2.1 Number Dr Outis never seriously considered having the dual number found in earliest Greek and some other languages.; it was not common in later Greek and eventually died out. But he seems to have considered that it was "natural" to mark plurals. He consider several possible plural endings but eventually settled on -as since not only did the accusative plural masculines & feminines of the 1st and 3rd declensions end in -a? (as), he also he considered it neatly combined the common nominative, vocative and accusative neuter plural -a (-a) with the -? (-s) found at the end of all masc. & fem. accusative plurals and the masc. & fem. nominative and vocative plural of the 3rd declension., i.e. 1st m. & f. 2nd m. & f. 2nd neuter 3rd m. & f. nominative plural -ai -oi -a -a accusative plural -as -ous -as -es 3rd neuter The same ending -as, as we have seen, is used for pronouns as well as nouns. 2.2 Gender Dr Outis' own native language as well Turkish (which he seems have had some knowledge of) get along nicely without any grammatical gender; therefore, in common with all other auxlangs (as far as I 47 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com know) he dispensed with that aspect of Greek and Latin grammar. Therefore, there is no grammatical gender in Outidic. However, on the analogy of the ancient pairs such as ßas??e?? (basileús) king ~ ßas??e?a (basíleia) queen, and ?e?e?? (?iereús) priest ~ ???e?a (?iéreia) priestess, Dr Outis allowed natural sex to be distinguished, if necessary, with the endings -eu (plural -euas) for males and -ei (plural -eias)for females; e.g. kun dog, kuneu male dog, kunei female dog, bitch; dlep brother or sister, sibling, dlepeu brother, dlepei sister; paid child, paideu boy, paidei girl; zer priest or priestess, zereu priest, zerei priestess; A few commonly used nouns already denote a specific sex and should not be used with those suffixes, e.g. pap father, mam mother; ner man, adult male human, gun woman, adult female human; cf. drop human being, person, man (generic), dropeu male human (whether baby, child or adult), dropei female human (whether baby, child or adult). 2.3 Case Dr Outis was aware that neuter nouns never distinguished between nominative, vocative and accusative in classical Greek (or Latin or, as far as he knew, in any other language). As he had decided against grammatical gender, he decided to extend this peculiarity of neuters to all nouns. But he was less certain about genitive and dative. That the ending of dative singulars was -? (-i) and in the plural often --s? (-si) intrigued him and he flirted with the idea of having a a dative marker -i which would give a dative plural -asi (he had, like many other auxlang designers from the 17th century to the 20th and, probably, still some in the 21st, decided to use agglutination). But in the end he dropped this and simply used a preposition po (? Epic Greek p?t?, p?t [= Attic p???]) - cf. Labbé's use of da ? Latin ad). In effect, he decided that subject and direct object were adequately shown by placing the subject before the verb and the object after it, whether the subject or object was a noun or pronoun, and that all other verbal arguments and adjuncts should be shown by using a prepositional phrase. So what about the genitive? 2.3.1 Genitive The ancient genitive had more than one function but, perhaps, the two most common are partitive and possessive. 48 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Dr Outis decided that the partitive use could well be shown by using the preposition ke (? Greek ??, ??) = out of, e.g. poul ke domas = many of the houses, pen ke utas = five of them. For possession, Dr Outis had resolved that he would imitate the ancient Greek practice of appending personal pronouns as enclitics to their nouns, e.g. pat?? µ?? (pate´r mou) my father, µ?t?? s?? (mete´r sou) your mother; hence Outidic: pap-em my father, mam-um your mother. Dr Outis extended this construction to all personal pronouns, e.g. kunas-ut her dogs, domas-emas our houses, psol-utas their city. The use of the hyphen is to show that the whole compound is pronounced as one phonological word. In the first three quarters of the 17th century the "his genitive" was still in vogue, e.g. for Christ His sake, in the Prince his company, Ned his house, etc. We even find "Pallas her Glasse" = Pallas' glass (Pallas Athene's glass). This practice, which first made its appearance in the 16th century, was possibly due both to hypercorrection and and to the occurrence of such use of 'his' (and possibly 'her') in some spoken dialects, since similar constructions are found in other germanic languages. Whatever its origin, Dr Outis was clearly familiar with the practice and thought it quite neat and that it would mean he could dispense with noun cases entirely; thus we fin in Outidic pap dom-ut (father his house) father's house, mam keiras-ut (mother her hands) mother's hands, neras domas-utas ([the] men their houses) the men's houses. One can have two possessives as, e.g. pap-em dom-ut (my father his house) my father's house. 2.4 Compound nouns In Greek compound of nouns were readily formed where the first noun in some manner qualifies the second one. We often do this in English as well, though we often write such phrases as two separate words.We may also form similar compounds in Outidic where the two nouns are joined by "euphonic u"; this is to prevent any awkward combination of consonants occurring. Dr Outis stated the he chose this as u is the weakest of the vowels, though he did not explain why he considered it so. It might have been also practical considerations as one will find that no suffixes begin with u-, thus -u- more unambiguously show a compound of two root morphemes. examples of compounds are: psol city + drop person ? psoludrop = a city person, a person who works and/or lives in a city mam mother + psol city ? mamupsol = mother city, metropolis 2.5 Summary: 49 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com Nouns have no grammatical gender Plural is shown by the suffix -as, e.g. pap = father ~ papas = fathers; psol = city ~ psolas = cities The noun does not change to denote verbal arguments or adjuncts: The subject and direct object of the verb are shown by the Subject-Verb-Object word order, e.g. kun adagan ner = the dog bites the man ner adagan kun = The man bites the dog All other verbal arguments and adjuncts are denoted by prepositional phrases. Possessive are denoted by pronouns used as enclitics as in 2.3.1 above. It will thus be seen that like his 17th century contemporary, Labbé, in his "Lingua Universalis" and Faiguet in his "Langue Nouvelle" of the 18th century, Dr Outis scrapped a all case distinctions, which makes their survival in so many of the 19th century auxlangs, including the two most popular ones, i.e. Volapük and Esperanto, all the more surprising. Top 3. Adjectives Adjectives are not especially marked in Outidic as they are in some later languages such Volapük and Esperanto. The suffix -ik is indeed found, but it is used to derive adjectives from nouns, with the meaning "of or pertaining to, relating to", e.g. kun dog ? kunik canine; pool city ? psolik urban; ner man, adult male ? nerik manly, virile; drop man, person, human being ? dropik human [adj]. It never occurred to Dr Outis, however, that all lexical roots should be either nominal or verbal; he seems not to question that a language will have adjectival roots also. Therefore, we find, for example: gat good (cf. Volapük gud 'goodness' ~ gudik 'good'); kak bad; meg large, great; mik little, small. Anticipating Faiguet's "Langue Nouvelle" of the following century, Dr Outis decided that adjectives should be invariable and not change to agree with their head noun. 50 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com 3.1 Position of adjectives The most common position for an attributive adjective in Greek was before its noun; Dr Outis decided to retain this, which is also the normal position for adjective and noun in English and the Germanic languages, in his "Lingua Communis"; thus, e.g. meg kunas large dogs; mik louras small cats. But, of course, kunas ain meg the dogs are big; louras ain mik the cats are small. But in Greek it was possible to place the adjective after the noun if the article were repeat, thus the wise person = ? s?f?? ?????p?? (?o sop?òs ánt?ropos) or ? ?????p?? ? s?f?? (?o ánt?ropos ?o sop?ós). Dr Outis realized that some people may prefer the adjective to follow the noun. He allowed this with the particle o, thus, e.g, a large house = meg dom or dom o meg. The particle o is reminiscent of the Persian ezâfe, but there is no evidence that Dr Outis was familiar with that language. It is possibly coined from the -o- which occurred so often between the two elements of a compound word in which the first element was a noun or adjective; but it is more likely, I think, to be from the ancient relative pronoun ?? (?os [m.]), ? (?e [f.]), ? (?o [n.]), since we find it also when a prepositional phrase is used adjectivally, e.g. kun o ne kep = the dog [which is] in the garden, and we shall find it used to introduce full relative clauses. It is of course possible that Dr Outis coined o from both sources. Any possessive suffix is added to the first element in a noun phrase, thus, e.g. my large house = meg-em dom or dom-em o meg 3.2 Comparison Comparatives and superlatives were marked by Dr Outis with proclitics, thus: ProcliticPossible etymology Example Absolute superlative za- ?a51 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com za(ancient Epic prefix) Sokrat ein za-sop Socrates was very wise Superlative (of superiority) malista mai- µ???sta Sokrat ein mai-sop drop ne Atenas Sokrat ein drop o mai-sop ne Atenas Socrates was the wisest person in Athens Comparative (of superiority) mamallon µ????? Sokrat ein ma-sop so Aristopan Socrates was wiser than Aristophanes Equative (Comparative of equality) so- ?? hos Platon ein so-sop so Sokrat Plato was as wise as Socrates Note: The morpheme so is used as a proclitic meaning "as" as well as a conjunction meaning "than" or "as." The proclitics mai- and ma-, however, cannot stand as independent words, cf. mai-poul brek apesan ne keim = most rain falls in winter; ein ma-poul louras so dropas ne dom = there were more cats than people in the house A comparative of inferiority may be expressed by ma-loig "less" or by using a negative statement, e.g.: Aristopan ein ma-loig sop so Sokrat = Aristophanes was less wise than Socrates; Aristopan ouk ein so-sop so Sokrat = Aristophanes was not as wise as Socrates. 52 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com The Epic prefix ?a- was derived from d?a (día) = through, which was ?? in the Aiolic dialect. we find that za was also used in Outidic to mean through; thus Sokrat ein za-sop means more literally Socrates was wise through & through, or Socrates was thoroughly wise. In addition to the prefixes above, Dr Outis also prefixed the prepositions pru above, over and pu beneath, under to adjectives with the meanings of too and not … enough respectively; e.g.: dom ain pru-meg, la kep ain pu-meg the house is too big, but the garden is not big enough. Top Appendix: Vocabulary Reminder: On the Verbs page we had: dom = house; inai to be; keir = hand; kun = dog; ne in. From kun we have derived forms: kunei = female dog, bitch; kuneu = male dog; kunik [adj.] = pertaining to dogs, canine. Vocabulary new to this page: Reminder - Outidic alphabet: A B G D E Z I K L M N O P R S T U gat [adj.] = good ma- = more, -er (comparative prefix) gun = woman (adult female human) gunik = womanly mai- = most, -est (superlative prefix) mam = mother 53 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com mamik = motherly, maternal dagai = to bite dlep = sibling dlepei = sister dlepeu = brother dlepik = fraternal, brotherly/sisterly meg [adj.] = big, large mik [adj.] = little, small ner = man, adult human male nerik [adj.] = manly, virile drop = person, human being, man (generic) dropei = female person (baby, child or adult) dropeu = male person (baby, child or adult) dropik [adj.] = human paid = child paidei = girl paideu = boy 54 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com paidik = childish za- (prefix) = very o relative particle zer = priest(ess) zerei = priestess zereu = (male) priest zerik = priestly pap = father papik = fatherly, patrenal pesai = to fall kak [adj.] = bad pen = five ke [prep.] = out of, of (partitive) psol = city psolik [adj.] = urban keim = winter keimik = wintery poul [adj.] = 55 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com (before singular noun) much (before plural noun) many kep = garden la = but pru [prep.] = above, over loig [adj.] = (before singular noun) little [amount] (before plural noun) few pu [prep.] = below, under so [conj.] = as, than lour = cat lourei = female cat loureu = male cat, tom lourik [adj.] = feline so- = as (equative prefix) 56 www.dennisdeus.wordpress.com