Grammatical Case of Graedjoan Giantish

Grammatical Case of Graedjoan Giantish

Graedjoan Giantish is a full-tripartite language, meaning that it distinguishes both between the agent of a transitive sentence, other nouns in a transitive sentence, and the subject of an intransitive sentence.

The cases of Graedjoan Giantish are:

The Absolutive Case, which is marked with the affix "be-" The Absolutive Case is given to nouns that are the subject of an intransitive sentence. Take for example, "The door opened." Door would be in the absolutive case.

The Accusative Case, which is marked with the affix "-ed" The Accusative Case is given to nouns that are the direct object of a transitive sentence. Take for example, "She hit him." Him would be in the accusative case.

The Ergative Case, which is marked with the affix "-∅" a zero morpheme. The Ergative Case is given nouns that are the agent of a transitive sentence. Take for example, "She hit him." She would be in the ergative case.

The Adessive Case, which is marked with the affix "-irr" The Adessive Case is a locative case, denoting that an action is occurring on a location--meaning something equivalent to, "The person is on the lake." Lake would be in the adessive case.

The Inessive Case, which is marked with the affix "dzi-" The Inessive Case is a locative case, denoting that an action is occurring in a location--meaning something equivalent to, "The man was in the house." House would be in the inessive case.

The Intrative Case, which is marked with the affix "ma-WORD-am" The Intrative Case is a locative case, denoting that an action is occurring between two locations--meaning something equivalent to, "The dog played between the house and the fence." House and fence would both be in the intrative case.

The Subessive Case, which is marked with the affix "-lom" The Subessive Case is a locative case, denoting that an action is occurring below the noun--meaning something equivalent to, "He lived below the bridge." Bridge would be in the subessive case

The Superessive Case,  which is marked with the affix "-iz" The Superessive Case is a locative case, denoting that an action is occurring above the noun--meaning something equivalent to, "The fox jumped over the fence." Fence would be in the superessive Case.

The Instrumental Case, which is marked with the affix "-urr" The Instrumental Case is given to nouns that are being used as an instrument for the performance of another action. In the sentence, "She played the piano with chopsticks," Chopsticks would be in the instrumental case.

The Dative Case, which is marked with the affix "-un" The Dative Case is given to nouns that are the indirect object of a transitive sentence. Take for example the sentence, "The cat gave the man a dead mouse." In this sentence, the man would be in the dative case.

The Possessive Case, which is marked with the affix "-yv" The Possessive Case is given to nouns that are possessing another noun. Take for example the sentence, "Those are John's books." In this sentence, John would be in the possessive case.

The Possessed Case, which is marked with the affix "gyl-" The Possessed Case is given to nouns that are possessed by another noun. Take for example the sentence, "Those are John's books." In this sentence, books would be in the possessed case.

The Genitive Case, which is marked with the affix "cy-" The Genitive Case in Graedjoan Giantish is different than most genitive cases found in other languages, as Graedjoan Giantish has a possessive case marking, which the genitive usually functions as. In Graedjoan Giantish, the genitive indicates that a noun is modifying another noun in a non-possessive manner. Take for example the phrase, "The glory of Rome." In this sentence, Rome would be in the genitive, and glory would be in the accusative.

Graedjoan Giantish Verbs: Tenses and Aspects

In Graedjoan Giantish, verbs are marked for both tense and aspect.

There are three tenses in Graedjoan Giantish: the nonpast, the simple past, and the imperfect past. Verbs do not have an infinitive form.

The nonpast is marked on verbs with a zero morpheme ("-∅"). The nonpast is used for all actions that are occurring in either the present or the future.

The simple past is marked with the affix "-va." The simple past is used for all actions that are occurring in the past.

The imperfect past is marked with the affix "-iz." The imperfect past is used for all actions that are occurring in the past but that are not considered complete by the speaker.

There are simple verbal aspects in Graedjoan Giantish: "the simple", the perfect, and the progressive.

"The simple" aspect is marked on verbs with a zero morpheme ("-∅"). Verbs that are not marked for the perfect, meaning that they have been completed, or that are not marked for the progressive, meaning that they are ongoing, are in "the simple."

The perfect is marked on verbs with the affix "-yrd." Verbs are marked for the perfect if they are viewed by the speaker as having been completed*.

*NOTE: The affix "-yrd" has an alternate form of "-dyrd" which appears when the affix is applied to a verb ending in a vowel.

-yrd --> -dyrd/V__

The progressive is marked with the affix "-guv." Verbs are marked for the progressive if they are viewed as ongoing by the speaker*.

*NOTE: The affix "-guv" has an alternate form of "-eguv" which appears when the affix is applied to a verb ending with the consonants "c" or "x."

-guv --> -eguv/C1__ {where C1 is "c" and "x"}

Introduction to Glossing

In order to understand many of the posts that will be on this blog, one must first understand glossing--as it is seldom that languages have one to one translations of words or phrases. Glossing is, put simply, the process of breaking words and phrases down into smaller parts.

First, let us look at an example from English. Take the English word, hills. The word being glossed will appear first in quotes, and the gloss will appear second, without quotes.

"hills" -- hill.PL

The word hill has two parts to it. First, there is the word, "hill," which means...well a hill. Then, there is the affix "-s." The affix "-s," in English, in this instance, means that the noun hill is plural. Thus, you have for the gloss "hill.PL," as "PL" is the abbreviation of plural.

Now, here is a list of common glosses that you will find in my translations. Any glosses seen in translations not on this list can be found here. You will also find links to articles about each of the grammatical functions found below.

Abbreviation	Meaning
PL	Plural
SG	Singular
NPST	Nonpast Tense
ADE	Adessive Case
ADJ or ADJZ	Adjectivizer*
SUPE	Superessive Case
GEN	Genitive Case
ERG	Ergative Case
POSS	Possessive Case
POSD	Possessed Case
NEG	Negation
PROG	Progressive Aspect
INSTR	Intrumental Case
INE	Inessive Case
REFL	Reflexive
1	First Person
2	Second Person
3	Third Person
ACC	Accusitive Case
ABS	Absolutive Case
CONJ	Conjunction
NMZ	Nominalizer
COND	Conditional
ITRT	Intrative Case
SUBE	Subessive Case
DAT	Dative Case
VBZ	Verbalizer**
PERF	Perfect Aspect
IMPERF	Past Imperfect Tense
PST	Past Tense

*There is not a page for an adjectivizer, even though there is a gloss for it. What this means is that the affix is turning the word explicitly into an adjective.

**There is not a page for a verbalizer, even though there is a gloss for it. What this means is that the affix is turning the word into a verb. 

Now that we have the basic idea of how glossing works, I will supply you will a sentence in Graedjoan Giantish, and the gloss. If you'd like, please comment below with what you think it means in English.

"dzigugulal, zun wicaxeguv nulirr."  

INE.PL.mountain.DIM sun.ERG light.VBZ.NPST.PROG river.ADE