Note: This site is completely a work of fiction, a background for my fictional language Wessisc. For real information on tourism on the Isle of Wight, a site we may suggest is http://www.iwight.com/.
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Primer Nouns |
Introduction
Word Construction
Assimilated Nouns
Weak Nouns
Strong Nouns
Masculine Strong Nouns
MI | MII | MIII
| MIV | MV
Feminine Strong Nouns
FI | FII | FIII
| FIV
Neuter Strong Nouns
NTI | NTII
| NTIII | NTIV
Genitive
Introduction
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Nouns, as in some Dialects of North Frisian, in German and in some elder Forms of English, all begin with a capital Letter. To clarify this, every Noun in this Sentence and the preceding Sentence receives a capital Letter to show as an Example.
All nouns also fall into one of three genders, as does modern German, and as did Anglo-Saxon. Nouns also are declined as in most Germanic languages, and has been the bane of many a student of Germanic tongues. Furthermore, changes occur in the noun in Wessisc as it varies from declension to declension. The nouns therefore have declensions.
What is a declension? A declension is a name for the ways in which a noun works withing sentence. In Wessisc, there are three or four declensions, depending on the opinions of different grammarians, namely Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and the debated Genitive.
There are various types of nouns, namely the various type of strong noun, and the weak nouns.
It is assumed that here one has read both the chapter on mutations and definite and indefinite articles so thus knows that certain words cause mutation.
Word construction
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To construct a noun, two noun roots are placed together like so:
Næm (masculine, Name) + Weord (neuter, Word) = Næmweord (Noun)
with the new noun taking on the gender and behaving as the second noun would do, thus Næmweord is neuter.
When a noun is take and it is in in the masculine form and the feminine form is required, the word usually takes -esse or -in and becomes weak feminine. There are, as always, no hard rules to this as to which is used when, so they will be highlighted in the individual entries in the dictionary, although if a noun ends with -wir, it will always drop the wir and become -win, behaving like a noun ending with -in.
Assimilated Nouns
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Naturally, every language, unless it is completely in isolation, as has been the case in much of the Icelandic language's history, will encounter another, and may be influenced by it, not least in vocabulary. Even the most resistant of languages will accept loan-words at some stage, for example you may be surprised to learn the Chinese (Mandarin) word for humour - you(1)mo(4) - derives its etymology from English. It has been asked whether Wessisc used to accept or reject loan-words. Naturally even the most resistant of languages accept loan-words at some stage, but Wessisc did prefer to accept words by translating the meanings, not by adopting the whole word. The modern English word foreign, for example, comes from Old French forain, ultimately from Latin, but Wessisc derives its word for foreign from construction of the word through using the meanings, thus the Wessisc word being wtlond, literally out-land.
When foreign words are assimilated into revived Wessisc, such as Cola
(f),
they act as follows:
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The general rule for the gender of assimilated nouns is that if it ends in a vowel or dipthong sound in the nominative singular, it is femnine. Otherwise the assmilated noun is neuter, unless logic would dictate that it is feminine or masculine.
A project can be found on the Internet here for an Anglo-Saxon Circolwyrde Wordhord (Computing Terminology) for you to see how such loan-words don't have to be assimilated wholly (as German has unfortunately done with der Computer).
Weak Nouns
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All weak nouns are the same, regardless of gender.
Example using Næm (m) - name
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To clarify, all weak nouns take an -(a)n ending in the nominative and accusative plural, and in the accusative singular. All weak nouns also undergo addition -(a)m to the root in the instance of the dative singular, and in the case of the dative plural, any final vowels sounds are replaced with the dative plural ending, -um.
All feminine nouns also take on initial mutation as necessary, therefore:
Cwrrw (f) - beer becomes
An Gwrrw - a beer and
Se Gwrrw - the beer
Strong Nouns
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Fortunately, there are few different types of strong noun to be learned today in the Wessisc language as are found in other Germanic languages.
To begin with, we shall take the masculine gender.
Masculine Strong Nouns
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The masculine nouns are basically defined by their plural endings:
MI -as
MII -er
MIII -(Possible Doubling of Final Consonant)au
MIV -(vowel change)
MV -(no change)
Type MI
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Stæn - Stone
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Type MII
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Ghwnd - Dog
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Type MIII
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Biscof - Bishop
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Also in this category fall such nouns ending in -wir, such as Flæscwir (butcher), but the plural does not add another 'r'.
Type MIV
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Mann - Man
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In this type we find other nouns of a similar type, such as Baum
=> Boim (tree => trees)
Such sound changes found are as follows:
a => e
au => oi
æ => ey
i => y
e => ee
o => w
Type MV
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Scyp - Sheep
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Feminine Strong Nouns
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The feminiine nouns are also defined by their plural endings:
FI -a
FII -e
FIII -au
FIV -en
Type FI
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Giefu - Gift
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Type FII
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Lahr - Lore, Knowledge
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Type FIII
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Caþ - Cat
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This operates similarly to Type MIII.
Type FIV
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Gwyff - Wife
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Neuter Strong Nouns
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The Neuter nouns are also defined by their plural endings:
NTI -w
NTII -was
NTIII -ren
NTIV -(no change)
Type NTI
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Scip - Ship
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Type NTII
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Gescrit - Writing
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Type NTIII
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Csild - Child
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Type NTIV
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Word - Word
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Genitive
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The genitive form (which can be disputed as a form as it does not seem to decline) operates similarly to other Celtic forms of the genitive, as shown in the following examples. Note that the possessed noun does not take any article, definite of indefinite, where as the possessing noun acts as normal.
Georcge Ghwnd - George's dog
ðæt Csild Ghwnd - the child's dog
ða Ghwnd Csild - the dog's child
Note that when a feminine noun possesses, the possessed noun undergoes mutation like so:
Se Hwyff Yfa - the wife's gift
Se Hwyff Vann - the wife's husband
(C) 2001 Damon M. Lord
