Torberian Declension

Torberian Declension is the set of patterns to which Torberian words are declined, or have their endings altered to show grammatical case, number and gender. Nouns, pronouns and most adjectives are declined (verbs are conjugated), and a given pattern is called a declension. There are three declensions, which are numbered and grouped by ending and grammatical gender. Each noun follows one of the three declensions, but in irregular nouns there are exceptions.

Adjectives are divided in four groups: The first group adjectives (like Káttu, Kátte, Kátta 'Pretty') use the three first declension endings, and are inflected by gender, case and number. The second group adjectives (like Ésverem, Ésveran 'Blue') use the second declension endings, and are inflected by case and number. The third group adjectives (like Kilát, Kilágúr 'Cold') use the third declension endings, and are inflected by case and number. And finally, the fourth group adjectives (like Kávares 'Fast') are not inflected at all, but are rather prefixed into the word they modify.

Pronouns meanwhile are divided in two groups: The first group is formed by personal pronouns, like Kó 'I' and Θé 'you' (sg.), and they follow their own irregular declensions, while the second group is formed by pronouns such as Vák 'this' and Áttet 'that' (md.), and generally follow the third declension, but with their own irregularities, for example their genitive singular ends in -is or -éis instead of -úr and their accusative singular in -il or -éil instead of being the bare root, or having an -i ending.

Cardinal numbers like Jót 'one', Té 'two' and Tén 'three' and their subclasses also follow their own irregular declension patterns, with subclasses being formed by adding a clitic particle after the declined noun, while ordinal numbers (like Jótet 'first') and numeral adjectives (like Téntu, Ténte, Ténta 'A pair, two each') function like ordinary adjectives of the third and first group respectively.

= Grammatical Cases =

Number of Cases
There is no universal consensus on the number of torberian cases. Outside of Torberia, the most common number is 6: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and locative, while within Torberia the complete declension of Torberian noun consists of up to six "strong" grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and locative and three "weak" grammatical cases: ablative, lative and neo-vocative.

The Neo-Vocative, Ablative and Lative Issue
The three weak cases are a point of contention in modern torberian linguistics, and there are two reasons for this:

The first reason is that, standard torberian, which is based on the Vájléja-Félía dialect, ablative and lative, while still functioning as independent cases, are exactly the same as the nominative and the dative respectively in all forms, while the neo-vocative case appears only in the singular of proper nouns, such as Torbere 'Torberia' or Kárnte 'Kárnt'. The second reason is that in many dialects of the Torberian Language, such as Talara Torberian, ablative and lative retain their distinctive forms in most nouns and declensions, so, for the reasons above, torberian linguists accept them as their own type of case, while international linguists believe those reasons aren't enough for them to be considered proper grammatical cases.

Order of Cases
The Late Serivnian grammarian Hateran is Runaran-Kurenen (14th Century AD) whose Hávren Kánnera became the standard for Western Serivnian, and later Torberian grammars, placed the cases in this order: "Xaserinák sán ixréik: pálatantét, klátet, énlatet, lataret, ataretet, sititet, száktet, háuteratet eé nátaret."
 * "There are nine cases: nominative, vocative, ablative, accusative, genitive, dative, lative, instrumental and locative."

This order was based on the order used by earlier Jaturnian grammarians, with the addition of ablative between vocative and accusative and the lative, instrumental and locative after the dative, the three of which did not exist in Jaturnian. The names of the shared cases were taken directly from Jaturnian, while the ablative, lative, instrumental and locative case names were made up by Hateran using Jaturnian nouns and then adding the derivative -tet at the end.

Case Syncretism
Syncretism, where one form in a paradigm shares the ending of another form in the paradigm, is common in Torberian, specially in the second and third declensions. The following are the most notable patterns of syncretism:

Gender-Specific
For pure Torberian neuter nouns, the nominative singular and accusative singular are identical; and the nominative plural and accusative plural end in -ák, -áet and -ín in the first, second and third declensions respectively. Both of these features come from the vocalization of accusative -l- after the vowel o, the vowel of the serivnian neuter.

Case-Specific

 * The dative plural and instrumental plural forms are always identical with the exception of nasal themed second declension nouns.
 * The genitive singular and locative singular forms are identical in the second declension.
 * The accusative plural, dative plural and instrumental plural forms are identical in the second declension.
 * The genitive plural and locative plural forms are identical in all declensions but the first.
 * The accusative plural and nominative plural forms are identical in the non-palatalized stems of the third declension.
 * The locative singular and instrumental singular forms are identical in the palatalized stems of the third declension.
 * The neo-vocative singular and nominative singular forms are identical in the female nouns of the first declension.

Pre-Torberian History
Old Karnak had 10 cases and 6 declensions, of which Classical Sérivnian inherited 9 cases and 4 declensions. The Prolative case in Old Karnak merged into the instrumental by the 4th century, while the vowel thematic declensions merged into one by the 8th century , and the consonant thematic declensions merged into one declension pattern by the 11th century onwards.

After the Classical Serívnian Period, the vocative began being substituted by "u" + nominative, originally an interjection translating to 'hey' by the 12th century, and was lost in most areas by the 14th century, but, in some areas of Sérna, the case remained in use all the way until the late 17th century.

Modern Divergence
Due to unequal phonetic changes across the whole Torberian Dialect Continuum, not all dialects have the same amount of cases. East of the Tírvaja-Ánera isogloss, and coincidentally within Talara, the instrumental merged into the locative by the 18th century in Sérna, and the 19th century in Tálara ; and outside of Tálara, the ablative merged with the nominative around the 16th century, while the lative merged into the dative in the 17th century. South of the Rjénvor-Hélsk line, with the exclusion of Tálara, the dual number was lost completely, with its functions merging with the plural throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

= Nouns = There are two principal parts for nouns, the nominative singular and the genitive singular. Each declension can be unequivocally identified by the ending of the genitive singular (-ó, -an, -úr). The stem of the noun can be identified by the form of the genitive singular as well.

There are three declensions for Torberian nouns:

First Declension (u, e, a stems)
Nouns of this declension usually end in -u, -e or -a in the nominative singular and in -ó in the genitive singular. The first declension is the only one to differentiate between masculine, femenine and neuter in declension, instead of having a distinction between common and neuter like the other declensions.

The predominant letter in the ending forms of this declension are: u for the masculine, e for the femenine and a for the neuter. The nominative singular form consists of the stem and the endings -u in the masculine, -e in the femenine and -a in the neuter, and the genitive singular form is the stem plus -ó.

Jaturnian Declension
The first declension contains most Jaturnian cultisms of the Torberian language, like Ráneru, Ránerun 'Book',  Hástera, Hásteran 'Reform' and Játuro, Játuron 'Association', and they are declined through the jaturnian equivalent of the first declension in the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative, and by the torberian declension in the ablative, lative, instrumental and locative. This way of declension is known for its distinctive ablative and lative forms in the femenine and the neuter and the extensive level of syncretism in the plurals, with the genitive, dative, lative and instrumental having the same form.

Proper Nouns
The first declension has a small amount of proper nouns, and almost all of them are female names, like Kárane or Nérine.

As the proper nouns in other declensions, they do not have the neuter gender, and, unlike them, they count with a distinct vocative ending of -e only in masculine nouns, as the femenine nominative/vocative singular desinences are the same.

Second Declension (Liquid and Nasal (n, m, r, l, ii) stems
The second declension is the largest pattern of (pure) torberian nominal declension. This declension doesn't have a masculine-femenine-neuter distinction, but only rather has a common-neuter distinction. It is also the only thematic declension where the stem is not vocalic, but rather consonantic, it being formed by three currents: the nasal declension, with nominatives ending in -m or -n, the liquid declension, with nominatives ending in -r or -l and finally the ii declension, originally the j declension, but due to later phonetic changes -j shifted to -ii in the Torberian language.

The second declension is marked by a high degree of syncretism, with its pattern merging the genitive and locative singulars, and in some instances, most notably -an nouns, merging the nominative, ablative, genitive and locative in the singular. It also has, like most declensions no distinction between the nominative and the ablative lr the dative and the lative. Despite all of this though, it contains the only instance in torberian declension where the dative/lative plural and the instrumental plural are separate.

The second declension is recognized by the genitive singular -an.

Nasal Stems
The nasal stems are a group of nouns within the second declension. They are marked by their distinct instrumental plural, and their nominative endings, which are either -n or -m, the only two nasals allowed at the end of a torberian syllable.

Liquid Stems
The second group of nouns in the second declension is made up of the liquid stems. They differ from the nasal stems in their nominative endings, which can be either -l or -r, their zero desinence in the nominative and the return of syncretism between the dative/lative and the instrumental plurals.

Ii Stem
The third group of nouns within the third declension is formed by the ii stem nouns. They are recognized by both their root and nominative singular ending in -i. and differ from the rest of second declension in that they end in a vowel sound, instead of a consonant.

Proper Nouns
There are few proper nouns in the second declension, and they are mostly names of either countries or cities. Ii stem nouns here become slightly irregular, and remove the -i- from their root in the genitive singular.

As the proper nouns, they do not have the neuter gender, and as in the third declension or the masculine nouns in the first, they count with a distinct vocative ending of -e.

Proper Nouns
= Pronouns =

Interrogative Pronouns
= Adjectives =

Numeral Adjectives
= Adverbs and their Comparatives and Superlatives =

Irregular Patterns
= Peculiarities within Declension =

Plurals with Alternative Meanings
= See Also = = References =
 * Torberian Conjugation
 * Torberian Language
 * Torberian Grammar