Greadian: Articles
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I will write here now the brief introduction to the whole system of articles and later add all the cases and separate this section into a few subpages. I need to write the whole tables for myself first so I can explain everything correctly.
Contents |
Introduction
In the articles you meet some difficulties. The article words are almost all borrowed from Greek but their use is completely different and way more difficult.
Articles are very agglutinative and they follow their own conjugation that is different to the case conjugation of nouns and pronouns.
Also, you must be really careful with articles. Putting a wrong article may cause total change of the meaning of a sentence.
Greadian has three different kinds of articles:
- Neutral articles
- Indefinite articles
- Definite articles
I have named them this way to avoid confusion and reveal the frames of their use. Still, do not use articles as you use them in most of European languages. They don't always express definition or indefinition. Actually, the difference is not that often in definition, but in collectivity, stability and generality.
Sometimes, articles do not only express particular aspect of the noun, but they may also be used to ease pronounciation with bearing either a long or short vowel depending on the situation.
Also, a great difference compared to most languages is that a noun is rarely used without an article. For example, one of the rare and few situations when an article isn't used is the prepositional case in singular number because the words before already tell the gender and aspect.
Articles also tell the gender and number of a noun. This is also why an article can be dropped off (again, in very few and rare situations) only if there are other words telling the gender and number of the noun, except if the word is a verb.
Articles have a lot of cases. Most of them are very marginal, but about 5-10 are very common and they are the same as the ones for personal pronouns.
Neutral articles
Neutral articles can even today be recognized. They are same as in Greek. But their conjugation is totally different. The conjugation of them is following:
| Masculine gender | Feminine gender | Neuter gender | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | о | и | то |
| Dual | һе | һа | һу |
| Plural | һе | һа | һу |
The cases are rarely added to the nominative form. Instead of that, the stem is taken from purposive case (which is never used stand alone for articles):
| Masculine gender | Feminine gender | Neuter gender | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | һор- | һир- | тор- |
| Dual | һер- | һар- | һур- |
| Plural | һер- | һар- | һур- |
Notice, that they share same form for dual and plural!
When to use neutral articles?
- When you are talking about something in general and not defining it anyhow.
- О кятос фяне һе мүсес 'cat eats mouses'
- When highlighting the gender.
- Та щяне о кятос. 'that is a male cat'
Indefinite articles
These articles are also more or less easily recognizable. They are just based on words "one", "two" and "many"! However, these articles bear practically never cases (except prepositional, accusative and objective), which makes this really simple.
| Masculine gender | Feminine gender | Neuter gender | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | єнос | єна | єне/єно |
| Dual | діөс | дія/дїа | діє/дїо |
| Plural | піөс | пія/пїа | піє/пїо |
NB! Dual and plural feminine and all neuters have two forms. Feminine form depends on the vowel lenght rules and neuter depends on the characteristic suffix.
When to use indefinite article?
- When you state that something is something and wouldn't change.
- Се щяса єна гұна. 'you are a woman'
- When you talk about a random person in collective meaning.
- Єнос андрөс наспізөне. 'A man doesn't curtsey'
