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loegare
a brief and inadequate account of the grammar of Loegare
Verbs in Loegare are almost entirely regular. It uses pronouns in a similar manner to English, and to the stem of the verb it attaches a suffix indicating the tense, voice, and mood of the verb.
tenses
The tense indicators are as follows:
| Active | Passive | |
|---|---|---|
| Tense | Indicator | Indicator |
| Present Simple | -ú | -aerú |
| Present Progressive | -istú | -aeristú |
| Perfect | -úv | -aerúv |
| Preterite | -ún | -aerún |
| Imperfect | -istún | -aeristún |
| Pluperfect | -úvn | -aerúvn |
| Future Simple | -íla | -aeríla |
| Future Progressive | -istíla | -aeristíla |
| Future Perfect | -ivíla | -aerivíla |
pronouns
The pronouns are as follows. An apostrophe indicates that the preceding vowel is long.
| Person | Sing. | Pl. |
|---|---|---|
| I | ís | aes |
| you | ús | úsis |
| he, him | ém | émis |
| she, her | ám | ámis |
| it | id | idae |
There is also an abstract pronoun, dhí, which is used where there is no actual subject. This is very similar way to the English use of 'it' in phrases like 'it is raining', which in Loegare would be dhí plaurú it rains.
Note that Loegare does not distinguish the accusative and nominative cases (e.g. she and her, but uses the same word for both.
example: altu - to climb
| Present Simple | I climb | ís altú |
| Present Progressive | I am climbing | ís altistú |
| Perfect | I have climbed | ís altúv |
| Preterite | she climbed | ám altún |
| Imperfect | she was climbing | ám altistún |
| Pluperfect | she had climbed | ám altúvn |
| Future Simple | he will climb | ém altíla |
| Future Progressive | he will be climbing | ém altistíla |
| Future Perfect | he will have climbed | ém altivíla |
Use of the Present Progressive is rare in Loegare - the Present Perfect is more commonly employed.
possessive pronouns
| ísn | my, mine | aesn | our, ours |
| úsn | yours, your | úsnis | yours, your (pl.) |
| émna | his | émnae | theirs (m.) |
| ámna | hers, her | ámnae | theirs (f.) |
| idn | its | idnis | theirs (m., f., or mixed) |
transitive and intransitive verbs
Originally Loegare had a strict method of marking transitive and intransitive forms. The transitive forms took the simple '-ú ending (with whatever tense form was appropriate), whereas intransitive forms took an '-imú ending. This can still be seen in many verbs, especially where they exist in both transitive and intranstive forms. For example, neldu, surrender, means to surrender up something, whereas neldimu means to surrender yourself.
However, quite a few verbs now only exist in one form, which invariably takes the simpler '-ú ending, regardless of its transitivity. For example, iágú, to go, is intransitive, and so should be **iágimu, but the transitive form has fallen out of use and has been replaced by the intransitive form.
As a side note, often these verbs originally possessed both forms, but one form has been replaced with another word. iágú, for example, originally meant to send someone or something forth (i.e. cause to go), but there is now a separate word for this.
gender
Loegare does not not mark words for gender. Proper names, however, do have a gender marking. Slightly confusingly, '-e' is the masculine ending (which is otherwise used to indicate nouns), and '-a' is the feminine ending (which is otherwise used to indicate adjectives). To add further confusion, this is not consistent -- there a plenty of names which do not end in either of these, and occasionally the 'wrong' ending will be found. For example, Berenice, the name of the Scarlet Empress, is feminine, in spite of the '-e' ending (although admittedly this example is a foreign name).
Names for places generally are even less consistent than personal names, not helped by the fact that sometimes there are attempts to 'correct' the names. As an example, the country Ardegn is occasionally spelt (and pronounced) Ardegne.
It will also sometimes be found in a 'corrected' form of Ardén, as the 'eg' form is an archaism, but this is very rare and not widely accepted.
plurals
There are three different ways of indicating plurals, though one of them is extremely rare.
If the singular form ends in e (which is the most common form for words native to Loegare), the plural is formed by changing this to ae. For example, núre (part, portion) becomes núrae.
If the singular form ends in a consonant (commonly this will be the dr or gr ending found in many Loegare words) the plural is formed by adding is. For example, giestr (sword) becomes giestris.
There are occasional exceptions to the above. For example, ráde (realm) forms the plural rádis, instead of the expected *rádae. Originally this was a loan word (possibly from Strelwidhan), rád, which would take the expected is ending. Over time, however, the word has been 'regularised' by adding the e suffix common to nouns which do not end in the consonant+r form. The original plural, however, has been retained.
The third plural form is very rare, and comes from Skae (hence it is only ever found with loan words), and adds or to the singular form. It can be seen in drégkor, peaks (now commonly spelt Trégor).
word order
...is approximately as follows: Indirect Object - Object - Subject - Verb. Adjectives usually follow the noun. Adverbs usually precede the verb, but they can also appear at the very beginning of the sentence (as is common in English), provided there is no ambiguity.