Goedish - Nouns

From "Ej studans par Gotisk! - A Comprehensive Guide to the Goedish Language, First Edition, Chapter 2: Nouns"

Goedish nouns are an entirely different matter. Over ninety percent of them are derived from counterpart verbs, or verbs that end up sharing the same root. An example is the archetypal word “drad”, derived from “dran”. Understanding the chapter on Verbs will help prepare one for the concepts that make up the derivations of them – a suitably large amount of the lexicon. With only so many roots to take from, as the list of original Germanic verbs is relatively small, there are various styles of deriving nouns from a single root that imply different aspects, and create a new word altogether. There are four standard types of verb-derived nouns, and unlike the suffix of the Goedish verb, the suffix of the noun is changed in accordance with plurality and subject-object orientation.

As is detailed in the first chapter, verbs make the backbone of the Goedish language. This applies both literally and etymologically. This first group of nouns and indeed the entire initial lexicon of nouns in Goedish are in fact verbs that have been given forms as nouns. This means that for each verb, there is a corresponding noun – and then three additional ones that give a noun-form in a different sense. Each of these four endings makes the verb a noun in a different aspect, but the endings usually denote the same treatment for each verb. For example, the implications of the second ending, “eo”, are the same for all verbs that it is applied to.

The First Declension : “Ad”

“Ad” is a cognate with the Latin ending “us” and the proto-Germanic ending “az”. Therefore it follows similar rules, yet it changes only with respect to number and role as a subject or object. It is curious to note that while Greek, Latin, and the Slavic languages have preserved this practice, the rest of the Germanic languages have nearly lost it altogether, instead opting to preserve the practice of verb conjugation which Goedish lacks from the source.

With these two binary values, a total of four possible endings results from the first declension “ad”. These are Nominative Singular, Nominative Plural, Accusative Singular, and Accusative Plural. The Dative and Genetive cases, nor any others, are not marked by a declensional suffix. They are rather marked by certain practices: for the Dative, it is dependent on the inclusion of prepositions the likes of which will be gone over later. For the Genetive case, the possessing word is rendered in the Accusative Plural case and follows the noun that it is possessing. This being said, the plurality of the possessor cannot be expressed while the Genetive case is in effect.

The following is a chart for the declension of “drad”, which will be used as an example:

Tree – “drad”	Singular	Plural
Nominative	drad	draid
Accusative	dradi	draidi

This chart shows the way in which this kind of noun declines, as well as introduces the first discrepancy between typography and phonetics. It is an important note for pronouncing Goedish, that whenever the letter “d” at the end of a noun becomes bordered on either side by an “i”, it slips from its “d” sound to that of the sound “th”, as in the English word “the”. This is one of the few Germanic languages to retain the fricative “th” sound.

As the chart shows, the word “drad” starts at its simplest form with the form “drad” and ends at its most complex form, “draidi”. In between are two possibilities. The first, of the Nominative Plural case, functions as a simple Ablaut and alteration of the noun’s inner vowel sound, so that the middle “a” suddenly becomes “ai”. This feature is familiar for speakers of Germanic languages. The second, the simple fixation of an “i” to the end of the noun, is also familiar in the same way, being a simple alteration of the ending in the accusative. A combination, changing “ad” to “aidi”, graces the Accusative Plural case.

We have already seen the word “drad”. As will be quoted in our section on Noun Transitivity, “Words ending in ‘ad’ are often those things which are either acted upon in the event of the verb or enact the verb [upon] themselves…” They describe whatever object most often experiences that verb. For the Goedish sense of thinking this was “tree”, for the concept “to hold”. In this way the class of words ending in “ad” is the closest to those of the verb-counterparts. 

Two other forms exist, however, for the nouns ending in “ad”. These have nothing to do with accusativity or plurality, and nor do they mark them. The first is relatively simple, and it is the shift of “ad” to “ai”. It is the Connective form, as seen in the first chapter’s discussion of compound nouns, and it performs exactly what is implied. Any word that takes the Connective form can thus be attached to the beginning of another noun to make a compound word, but it may only take this form if it is attached in such a way. “Drai” as a stand-alone word does not make sense. As the last note about this form, it is important to reflect on the fact that the fixation of a word to another does not have the same implications as when compounds ending in a verb are made. For example, “draibrad” would not be the exact noun-counterpart of “draibran”. For two nouns joined together, the way that the noun at the front alters the one at the back is in relation to what its original verb means – “dran” – and not “drad”, even though it uses the connective form of “drad”.

The second additional form is the curiosity called the “Nominal Case”, but not because of anything nominative or subject-marking. It is unique among languages, comparable only to the vocative case, which it nevertheless differs from dramatically. This form creates a name out of the noun, a proper name such as can be used to name a figure, being, or a simple archetypal actor. The result is best thought of as a title. It can only be done with the class of words ending in “ad”, and is carried out by first bringing the word into its Accusative Plural form, ending in “aidi”. Then, as will be discussed in the section over adjectives, a sound is inserted in the form of a letter before the middle vowel of the noun. It is an “i”. The resulting name will describe a being that performs the action in question, deriving from the original verb rather than its concrete noun-counterpart ending in “ad”. It therefore makes another return to its root and manifests again as an actor or agent. Therefore, “drad” would become “Driaidi”, meaning “one who endures”. The practice of making or using these names is very limited.

Lastly, there is an ending for this class of word that denotes a range of degrees or the quality of the word in question. “Ad” becomes “aiad”.

The Second Declension: “Eo”

“Eo” is thought to be a cognate of the Latin feminine ending “a” and the German feminine ending “a”. However, its meaning – as is thought to be in the proto-Indo-European language as well – does not signify anything pertaining to biological sex. What it denotes, from its originating verb, is a thing that is involved in the process of carrying out the action, but is not necessarily the affector or the affected. It is simply a catalyst, or an object somehow removed from its verb-counterpart by a few degrees of meaning and is meant to denote something that relates to it. For example, the word ending in “eo” for the verb “tran”, which means “to turn”, is “treo”, meaning “track”. This word specifically implies a closed track, or a path that is circular, because that is what results from the typically continuous action of “tran” (the nature of “tran” will be extrapolated upon later, shedding much light on its continuous nature).

The nature of this ending may seem idiosyncratic at times, but they can all be traced back to their parent verb in some fashion or other. To illustrate, the “eo” form of the verb “dran”, “dreo”, has the meaning of “door”. At first there seems little resemblance between a tree, “drad”, and a door, “dreo”, other than that they both might be made of wood. However, being noun-forms of the same verb, they do share a feature. “Dreo” is what occurs, or what exists, when “dran” is continually performed – but it is not the actor nor the acted upon. It is simply an object which typifies a usage of “dran”, to hold fast, and the Goedish people most readily assessed this as a door. A door is a thing which lets things in and does not permit others, and in this function as a dynamic barrier, guarding whatever is at the other side, its function is very prevalent for something that is “holding fast” or “supporting”. A gate supports or holds fast in the face of what is going against it, yet it lets in that which can help it or which should enter. It is therefore a very important tool for whatever is holding fast. Further etymology for “dreo” can be traced back to a supposed relationship of trees acting as doorways, either as in the hollow of a tree or in the space between two trees in the pagan practices of the ancient Goedish, but this cannot be clearly documented.

To sum this up, “eo” is what results when the action is undertaken, but most often as a function, and whatever object provides that function, rather than what the physical product of the verb is.

The ending “eo” also changes in accordance to plurality and accusativity. These binary values create a total of four endings, which are illustrated in the table below, the declension of the word “dreo”:

Door  – “dreo”	Singular	Plural
Nominative	drea	dreia
Accusative	dreo	drei

As the chart shows, the Nominative Singular form is not “dreo”, but “drea”. The reason that words ending in “eo” are listed as such, instead of being listed as words ending in “ea”, is because this class of noun most often tends to not be in the Nominative case, due to its nature, and is mostly seen as an accusative object either with a direct or indirect relationship. They are often not the actors. One can readily see that the declension of “eo” makes changes much more radically than that of “ad”.

As before, the Dative case is marked by the inclusion of a preposition, without any additional changes to the actual word. The Genitive however is always marked with the Nominative Plural case, and also does not allow the expression of plurality while it is in effect. As with “ad”, it follows the possessed thing whenever in the Genitive case.

The Connective form of words ending in “eo” is actually no different than “eo” – these words can simply be added how they are to another, albeit carrying a specific spectrum of meaning. These words can also connect to others with the ending “ea”, and this is only if the described base-word of the compound is being described as affected by the connected word, which is most often not the case. When it is connected with the ending “eo”, it usually means, in the case of verbs, “to perform said verb in the way that would be done to the connecting word”, rather than the other way around, when “ea” is used. “Dreodan” means literally “to do as one would to a door”, and thus means either “to open the door”, “to close the door” or “to open or close” something in the general sense. “Dreadan”, on the other hand, would mean “to do as a door does”, which could mean a range of things, most of which happen to be expressed already by other words.

The Third Declension: “i”

This rarely seen ending is etymologically similar to the ending “a”, but it denotes an instance of an uncountable thing. That mostly means something for which a plural form is irrelevant, such as snow and rain, and therefore the word denotes a continuous amount. “Vi”, for example, means water. “Sti” means grain. It has little to no declension at all, existing only in a Connective form. When it is fixed to a word, its ending changes from “i” to “y”, which is the Greek Y or Upsilon which is pronounced as the umlaut-ed “u” in the German word for bureau. Even with this being said, there are a few singular words that fall under this category that deserve attention.

This is because those words do not follow the standard – and very simple – rules for the ending “i”, and that is because they retain the remnants of the former style of declension that has since disappeared. The two words particularly in question are “liht”, “miht”, and “naht”, which mean “light”, “power” and “night”.  These follow an old system of declension and relate to “i” only in the fact that their Connective forms also end with “y”.

The following table gives the declension for the word “naht”:

                        Singular                       Plural

Nominative     nyt                   nahti

Accusative      naht                 nahti

The sequence “aht” is also seen as “iht”.

The Fourth Declension: “av” and other miscellaneous letters

Words that end in “av” are denoted as a kind of vessel for whatever is taking place, or the physical part of the subject that most readily performs what the subject is said to tend to perform. For example, what is said to tend to perform “stan” the most is a “stad”, which is a word meaning “point” and “city” and possibly several other things that stand anchored in one place. The part of a single object that tends to perform it, however, which itself does this performing is “stav”, meaning “staff”, “stem” or “pole” depending on its application. It can also mean the trunk of a tree. This is because it is the trunk that performs most of the standing, while the tree performs this act mostly by its possession of the trunk. It is therefore a lesser version of the ending “ad” and denotes a lesser, more instrumental and actual application of the action, which may or may not belong to the “ad” form itself.

In terms of declension, this ending follows the exact same rules as the ending “ad”, except that the “d” has been replaced with “v”. This is only true, however, for those words that end in “av” that are derived from parent verbs like the rest of the previously described noun-types – and there are some that do not. These also end in the vowel “a” and then a consonant, but it is not “v”. This special sub-class of nouns fall under this section but do not behave in the way that the “ad” and “av” endings do. Instead they only take two forms, what would be approximated to the Nominative Singular and Accusative Plural seen in the table of the declension of “drad”. Without the option of distinguishing between Nominative and Accusative cases, these special words are actually remnants from the older proto-Germanic lexicon that never received proper sound-shifts to accommodate for the Goedish style of language. Or, more likely, they simply never changed. They therefore became declined under these two modes, which are very simple.

The ancient word “ak” means “oak” in Goedish, and is one of these miscellaneous-letter words. Below is a table with the declension of “ak”:

Oak – “ak”	Singular	Plural
Nominative  or Accusative	ak	aiki

Formerly there was a practice of rendering the Nominative Plural as “aik”, as well as with other words of this class, but such a practice has not persisted into the current century. It survives in only older writings.

The Connective form of the word ending in “av” remains “av” through and through. For other words under this category, they also remain the same.

Having gone over the four familiar endings derived from verbs, it would do good to review what vocabulary has been introduced. With their English translations, they are:

tran – to turn

treo – track

dreo – door

dreodan – to open the door

vi – water

sti – grain

liht – light

miht – might

naht – night

stad – city

stav – staff

ak – oak

As you may have already become aware of, the glosses of these words represent only a specific application of the word. You will no doubt learn of the various glosses that can be achieved via context, such as “point” instead of “city” from the word “stad”, as you find more examples.

Words without Standard Etymological Shifts

These words mostly persist with their old forms, like “ak”, and have not adapted at all to the system of declension. They therefore remain without declension, and can only be pluralized by adding an “i” to the end. These include such familiar words as “mother”, “father”, “sister”, and “brother, which are “moer”, “foer”, “soer”, and “broer”.

Further words without declension

A smaller amount of Goedish nouns, as well as verbs, come not from proto-Germanic linguistic roots but from onomatopoeia instead. This practice developed within the past thousand years to account for several words missing in the Goedish language – perhaps deleted as a result of a forced assimilation of the local Baltic people, or perhaps for more ineffable reasons. Chief among the examples is the word “kakan”, which means “to cook”, and is thought to come from the onomatopoeia of sizzling, “crackling” food when it is being cooked rather than the standard Germanic cognate for “cook”. There is a theory that perhaps these words were deleted and then rediscovered when making contact with other Germanic languages, and were appropriated under the guise and explanation of a solidarity-preserving onomatopoeic base. There are several words like this. Some hold much precidence, such as “kikan” which means “to peek”, or “to take a look at”, familiar in the German cognates “kieken” and “gucken”, but which is explained as coming from the clucking of a chicken or bird as it peeks at something from around the corner. Many of these words come from animal noises. “Moan” means to moan, and it comes from the sound of a cow mooing – this is one of the more plausible onomatopoeic relationships. The fact that the spelling deviates by not containing the single vowel “a”, or by the fact that the letter preceding the apparent base do not follow a Connective form, betray them as onomatopoeic sounds. The Goedish people never really had much of a chance to advance their form of nationalism, since the smothering of the Russians, Germans and even Latvians during the world wars and the past two centuries, but they have still maintained that these terms come from within their language alone, and that they were not stolen from their sister languages.

The last group of words is borrowed directly from Latin or Greek. “Avto” is car, “Disadparum” is disappearance, and it would not be rare to see a familiar Latin word or two in a text. Some of these words follow a simple system of declension while others do not follow any at all.

The next chapter will deal with parts of speech, including further descriptive classes such as pronouns, prepositions, and adjectives. 

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: Verbs