Language scratchpad

This page contains languages currently under construction, which have yet to reach a stage where it can get its own article. Most, if not all, of these langauges will be part of either Innocence Seekers or one of its spinoffs.

Unnamed langauge #1
This is a language largely based on English, but with more inflections. No name has been decided yet, but it is intended to be spoken in Nodaima.

Nouns
Nouns have three cases: nominative, genitive and dative. Noun declension has largely been regularised.

Declension of fiš: This noun is in the first declension, which is productive.

Declension of nēm: This noun is in the second declension, which is marginally productive.

Declension of lèmb: This noun is in the third declension, which is no longer productive.

Declension of tūť This noun is in the fourth declension, which may or may not exhibit umlaut in the plural. This declension is no longer productive.

Pronouns
Unlike nouns, personal pronouns also have an accusative case.

Personal pronouns:

Interrogative/relative pronouns:

Verbs
Conjugation of wezen/bīn: This verb is highly irregular. Note that there are two forms each for the infinitive, first-person singular present, present participle and gerund. These forms are interchangeable.

Conjugation of beren: This verb is a strong verb, meaning it exhibits ablaut. Strong verbs have four principal parts: the infinitive, the singular indicative past tense form, the plural indicative past tense form (which is also used for the subjunctive), and the past participle.

Conjugation of fillen: This is a weak verb, meaning its past tense and past participle are formed with a dental suffix. The original weak verb classes have largely fallen together, with only a few irregularities surviving. The two principal parts of a weak verb are the infinitive and the past participle.

Conjugation of hèven: This verb is another weak verb; however, it is fairly irregular.

Conjugation of dūn: This verb is fairly irregular.

Conjugation of kannen: This is a preterite-present verb. All preterite-present verbs are irregular, with their present forms conjugating as if they were the past tense forms of a strong verb, while their past tense is similar to that of weak verbs.

Unnamed language #2
Like the above language, this language is also based on English. However, it is meant to be a possible descendant of a fictional dialect of English. It is intended to appear in Innocence Seekers III: Fragments of Time.

Verbs
In this language, verbs have several forms. These forms are the infinitive, which doubles as a singular present subjunctive and singular imperative, the plural present subjunctive (marked with -en), the singular and plural past subjunctive, the plural imperative, the negative forms of the subjunctive, the present and past participles, and the gerund. For most verbs, the indicative forms have fallen out of use.

Conjugation of sing:

The indicative form is always formed by using one of many auxillary verbs (with the exception of the copula, which, unique among all verbs, can stand alone in the indicative).

Conjugation of bī:

This is the copula. It can stand alone to form a copulative clause, or be used as an auxillary, either with the present participle to indicate progressive aspect, or with the past participle to indicate passive voice.

Conjugation of dū: This is the default auxillary (when used with the bare infinitive), and carries no meaning if used as such. As a main verb, it means "to do".

Conjugation of hev: This verb, if used as an auxillary, indicates the perfect when used with the past participle. As a main verb, it means "to have".

Flefluan
While this language is linked to by a number of articles, it is not in the stage where it can get its own article.

Verbs
Note the -mi and -tu suffixes for first and second person singular forms. These are not part of the verb, but are actually clitic forms of the pronouns. The imperfect forms were originally periphrastic constructions with the corresponding imperfect forms of xwon.

Conjugation of beron:

Irregular verbs
Conjugation of xwon:

Blylandic
Like Flefluan, this language is not at the stage where it can get its own article.

Nouns
Compared with the old form of the language, the declension systems have partially merged. The vocative has merged with the nominative, and in many cases the nominative has merged with the accusative (some major classes still distinguish the two cases, but only in the singular). In general, the combined nominative/accusative uses the historical accusative forms. Neuter nouns originally had different plural forms from the masculine and feminine nouns in the nominative and accusative; however, levelling has since given them the masculine/feminine endings in most classes (typically -en).

a-stem nouns
Some nouns in this class display umlaut between the singular and plural; historically these nouns were consonant stems. All feminine nouns in this class display umlaut.

ō-stem nouns
This is a merger of two classes: the ō-stem, and the ī/jō-stem nouns.

i/u-stem nouns
This is a merger of the i-stem and u-stem classes.

n-stem nouns
This is a merger of three different classes, all with the -n- infix. This represents the "weak" declension.

The neuter declension is as follows:

Due to the merger of the nominative and accusative in most other classes (the only other class which preserves separate nominative and accusative forms is feminine-only), the n-stem declension is the only declensional class with two different sets of declensions depending on gender.

r-stem nouns
This class contains only five members: fadder, moder, broþer, swester and dutter.

z-stem nouns
This class has identical singular and plural suffixes in the nominative/accusative. However, umlaut often distinguishes the forms.

Consonant stem nouns
Like the z-stem nouns, these nouns have identical singular and plural suffixes in the nominative/accusative, with umlaut only distinguishing them. Historically, this class also included masculine and feminine nouns (with plural -en); however, they have migrated to the a-stem declension.

Adjectives
There are only two adjectival declension classes: the strong declension and the weak declension. The weak declension is only used in the presence of a determiner, and it is considered "weak" largely due to the merger of many endings (in fact, the masculine and feminine are merged in the weak declension).

The strong declension suffixes are as follows:

The weak declension suffixes are as follows:

Many adjectives can be declined using either declension, but some are strong only, while comparatives and most ordinals are weak only.

The definite article sa (also the medial demonstrative) is declined as follows:

Verbs
Verbs conjugate for mood, tense and number. Historically, they also conjugated for person; however, such conjugations have since disappeared.

The standard conjugational suffixes are as follows:

Strong verbs
Strong verbs are distinguished by the fact that their stems show ablaut. Their past participles end in -en. Strong verbs display i-umlaut in the singular present indicative, the past subjunctive and the plural imperative, and u-umlaut in the plural past indicative.

Conjugation of berren:

Strong verbs display four principal parts: the infinitive, the singular past indicative, the plural past indicative, and the past participle. For berren, they are berren, bar, bǫren and burren.

Weak verbs
Unlike strong verbs, weak verbs form their past tense via a dental suffix. Their past participles end in -t, -þ or -d. Note that the indicative and subjunctive have merged in the past tense for weak verbs, as all but one weak verb do not display umlaut.

Conjugation of heren:

Weak verbs only have two principal parts: the infinitive and the past participle. For heren, they are heren and herd.

Note that the only productive class of weak verbs includes an infix -e- between the stem and the conjugational suffix. This is invisible for suffixes which already have -e-.

Conjugation of salben:

One particularly important weak verb is hębben:

This verb is used as the perfect tense marker, when used with the past participle. Note that this verb is actually irregular; it is the only weak verb left that displays umlaut, meaning that the past forms still distinguish the indicative and subjunctive moods. The word-final -s and -ft, however, are completely regular (due to morphophonological processes turning -bs to -fs to -s, and -bt to -ft).

Preterite-present verbs
Preterite-present verbs are an unusual class of verbs. Their present forms are conjugated as if they were the strong past forms, while their past forms are formed similarly to weak verbs. They typically do not possess imperative forms

Conjugation of kunnan:

This verb is unusual; even in Old Blylandic, the weak dental suffix was absorbed into the nasal. Hence its different forms are only distinguished by umlaut.

Conjugation of witten:

This is also an unusual verb; the dental suffix is assibilated even in Proto-Germanic, but the dental stop re-emerged word-finally at some point in the language's development, leaving the -st ~ -ss- alternation.

Conjugation of skullen

Irregular verbs
Conjugation of wessen:

In archaic language, one may still find forms such as ek em (I am), þu irt (thou art) and þu wast (thou wast) where the modern language has ek is, þu is and þu was, respectively.

Conjugation of don:

Conjugation of gan: