Last time I told you about more Ori verbs and how to conjugate them. Now I will move on to nouns. As I’ve mentioned before, Ori nouns come in four classes (like grammatical genders): animate, inanimate, celestial, and abstract. Ori has noun cases that suffix to nouns to show their grammatical role in the sentence. There are singular and plural, and different cases depending on the class of the noun. Below are the case endings for singular animate and inanimate nouns. The column that says -C stop contains suffixes for nouns that end in an oral or nasal stop (-t, -p, -c, -b, -d, -g, -m, -n). These nouns get a little epenthetic -i- inserted before the case suffix, as you can see below.
- Note that the blue shaded rows are where the cases for both animate and inanimate are the same.
So what do these cases mean?
Nom = nominative: this marks the subject of a verb. Example: tu-porin-is merir ‘the shepherd is dancing’
Gen = genitive: nouns in the genitive case show possession or relation. Example: lye-bus tu-ema-re ‘the house of the woman; the woman’s house’
Dat = dative: nouns in the dative case are the indirect object of a verb. In English, this would be often marked with the preposition to or for. Example: maropye tu-porit tu-ema-te ‘give the sheep to the woman’
Acc = accusative: nouns in the accusative case are the direct object of a verb. Example: tepe-t cyepu cyan ‘I took the fruit’
Loc = locative: nouns in the locative case show that something is located in, at, or on a thing. Example: bu-le ummum ‘I am staying at home’
Instr = instrumental: the instrumental case is used to show that something was done by means of some noun–that this noun is the instrument. Example: restin-ir lye-holist ayalnda ‘they are opening the door with a key’
Voc = vocative: this case is used when you mean to call out to someone or something. Example: Oa, porin-ca! ‘Hey, shepherd!’
The cases for other classes (singulars and plurals) are below.
So let’s look at some examples of these cases in action–in actual phrases and sentences.
Hilucul-ya bellu ‘The sky is wide’
Caru-s roru-sye ‘A world of darkness’
Sesta-lu maro ‘Give [something] to life’
A hilacul-ca! ‘O, heaven!’
Yupye ti-yutar-pya! ‘Look at the cloud!’
Hustu-ce ‘by means of trust’
Hilacul-cya ‘in the sky’
Bu-s ti-hiluma-na ‘a house of the priestess’
I’ll have more examples of Ori sentences soon…
Mintaka
Aeniith: A Constructed World 