Noun Declension

Gender and Number

Gcè Dlaryv has three genders. Inanimate nouns all fall in an inanimate gender, while animate nouns are split into masculine and feminine genders. There used to be an animate gender for non human animate nouns, like animals, natural phenomena &c. Due to sound changes, these nouns lost distinctive features, and were thus reinterpreted as either inanimate, feminine, or masculine.

The number of any noun depends on the gender of the referent. If a noun is inanimate, it is assumed to be mass unless placed in a singulative. In the mass form, the noun can be interpreted as singular; the singulative merely mandates that interpretation. If a noun is masculine or feminine, it is singular by default, and necessarily occurs as one. A plural form occurs for these nouns, but the plural form does not distinguish masculine or feminine gender. Rather, they are held as the same, so a plural noun could be considered to be made up entirely of males, females, or a mix of both. The plural can also be used to signify a human singular of unknown, unspecified, or nonbinary gender.

Grammatical Cases

Gcè Dlaryv has five cases. The specific form of these cases relies on the declension, but the purpose of the cases is consistent.

Nominative Case

The nominative case is used for the subject of the verb. It is also often used in direct address, often with the particle ai ‘hello, hey’.

Accusative Case

The accusative case is used for the direct object of simple tense verbs (that is, verbs not constructed with auxiliaries). It is also used to describe duration and time.

Genitive Case

The genitive case is by far the most used case in Gcè Dlaryv and has many uses. Its primary use is denoting the possessor of an object, but it is also used to denote accompaniment by, with, or from a referent. In addition, the genitive is used alongside a number of prepositions, especially those denoting movement. 

Auxiliary statements take the genitive as the direct object. This is because the statement is derived from an intransitive verb with an adverb, with the genitive being used to mark the possessor of the action.

Similarly, dependent clauses demand a genitive subject, assuming the subject is not already stated, either by being the subject of the whole sentence or by being the referent of a relative clause.

Dative Case

The dative case is used primarily to denote indirect objects, beneficiaries, and purpose of actions. Certain verbs also require the dative as their subject, and the dative is used with certain prepositions to mark location.

Instrumental Case

The instrumental case is the least used case in Gcè Dlaryv. It is used to denote instruments used to perform an action, as well as the agent of a passive statement.

Declension

Gcè Dlaryv has four declensions, the first three corresponding neatly to the three genders and the fourth constituting all possible genders. In order to properly determine the gender and declension of any given noun, two forms are given in the dictionary: the nominative singular/mass and the definite genitive singular/mass. First declension nouns will follow the pattern '-è, -ir', second declension nouns '-, -è', third declension '-o, om' , and fourth declension '-, -ýr'.

An example of the dictionary listing of a noun is given below.

First declension nouns follow the pattern of -e. They are all inanimate nouns, and thus decline for singulative and mass numbers.

Examples of inanimate nouns include dhasmè 'fire' smaivè 'gift', and aithè 'arrow'.

Second declensions are mostly feminine nouns, although a few are masculine, especially loanwords from Ighālyar. Note that the plural is identical to the third declension plural. This is because masculine and feminine genders are not differentiated in plurals. The general pattern of second declension nouns is -a.

Examples of second declension nouns include gwèmár 'woman', dlaryv 'tongue', and ada 'boy servant', which is actually masculine.

Third declension nouns are almost exclusively masculine. The general pattern of third declension nouns is -o.

Examples of third declension nouns are frio 'man', gcòno 'boy' and ygnaro 'horse'.

Fourth declension nouns are the most irregular. They emerged from other genders which occured immediately following old laryngeals, which were not lost until causing vowel to centralize. After several sound changes, these mutations led to a fourth declension. In fourth declensions, nominative and instrumental nouns have no external marking. Forth declension nouns can belong to any gender, and depending on whether its inanimate or animate it would take singulative or plural marking.

All participles are fourth declension, and thereby some adjectives. Nevertheless, various nouns fall in the fourth declension as well. Examples of fourth declension nouns include doacirag 'forest', triw 'river', and trao 'bread'.