Proto-Finnic/Nouns and adjectives
Important notes
[edit | edit source]- There are no actually-defined irregular nominals other than pronouns, that is having completely irregular declension. Livonian includes pronouns in their numerical indexes, but other Finnic languages do not.
- There are some nominals that have effectively somewhat irregular declension:
- All nominals suffixed with usually diminutive suffix *-inen, these have irregular genitive stem *-ice- (*nainen, *naicen, *naicta "woman").
- The suffixes *-mpi (comparative) and *-t'oin ("-less") have genitive stems *-mpa- and *-ttoima-, but their partitive singular principal parts were *-mpada/*-mpata and *-t'ointa (the latter is by analogy with nominals in -me-).
- *Mees "man" has irregular genitive stem *meehe-. Note that while both *mees and *kuningas "king" contain odd number of syllables, *kuningas originally has the stem *kuninkasë-, but later become *kuninkahë- by analogy.
- *Veli "brother" has irregular genitive stem *velje-, not *vele-. Some languages have regularized the nominative singular to *velji.
- *Meri "sea" and *veri "blood" have irregular partitive *mërta, *vërta, or regular *mertä, *vertä.
Declension types
[edit | edit source]Unlike in Latin, Swedish, Lithuanian, and Latvian, of which the declensions are classified into ordinal numbers (1st declension, 2nd declension, etc.), most Finnic languages traditionally used nouns or adjectives plus number indexes for inflection types (e.g. Proto-Finnic type 1/*kala, Finnish type 1/valo).
List
[edit | edit source]| Type | Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Genitive | Partitive | Nominative | Genitive | Partitive | |
| 1 | *kala | *kalan | *kalada | *kalat | *kaladen *kaloiden |
*kaloida |
| Nominals that ends in -a, with the preceding syllable's vowel being a, e, i, and containing an even number of syllables.
*Kala means "fish". | ||||||
| 2 | *mancikka | *mancik'an | *mancikkata | *mancik'at | *mancikkaden *mancikkoiden |
*mancikkoita |
| Similar to the previous type, except it contains an odd number of syllables. Only geminates and consonant clusters could gradate, because single obstruents were subject to previous suffixal gradation (see also Proto-Finnic/Phonology).
*Mancikka means "strawberry". | ||||||
| 3 | *vanhempi | *vanhemban | *vanhempata | *vanhembat | *vanhempaden *vanhempoiden |
*vanhempoita |
| Similar to the previous type, except the nominative singular form is irregular.
*Vanhempi means either "older" or "parent". | ||||||