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<html><head><title>Rivers and adjective-noun agreement</title></head>
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<center><h1><!--title-->Rivers and adjective-noun agreement
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<p>Posted by <b><!--poster-->Philip Newton</b>
on <!--date-->2:44 9/16/01
<p>In reply to: <a href="177.html">Compass directions and rivers</a> posted by Philip Newton</b> on 2:37 9/15/01
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<p>Mark wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>That leaves us, I think, with this rule: Either <b>so
(gliny) Nil</b> or <b>soa (gliny) selë Nil</b> is
correct.</p></blockquote>
<p>And the genitive would be <strong>soei glinii Nilei</strong> and
<strong>soe glinye selëi Nilei</strong>, respectively? That is,
the adjective uses the masculine ending when used with a masculine
river name (and a feminine ending when used with a feminine river name
such as <strong>Svetla</strong>) but always a feminine ending if
<strong>selë</strong> is explicitly stated? (But a masculine river
name still declines like a masculine noun, even if
<strong>selë</strong> is present, right? And it agrees with
<strong>selë</strong> in case?)</p>
<blockquote><p><b>So</b> agrees with the name of the river if
<b>selë</b> is not present. Thus: <b>So Eärdur e beluana, ac
ditavu soa selä Raum</b>, 'the Eärdur is beautiful, but I
prefer the river Rau'.</p></blockquote>
<p>Strange; I would have expected <strong>So Eärdur e
<u>beluan</u></strong>, with the adjective agreeing with the name of
the river (which is masculine). Your sentence looks as if
<strong>beluan</strong> agrees in case with the unstated
<strong>selë</strong>, but that clashes with the example given in
syntax.htm: <strong>Soa sazë e guessë, er ilu e
imbushäm.</strong> = <em>The prince [f.] is powerful [f.], and he
[not she] is tasty [m.]</em>. Here, <strong>guesse</strong> is
feminine, to agree with the explicit <strong>sazë</strong> =
<em>prince</em>, not with the unstated <strong>uestu</strong> or
<strong>ser</strong>. So I would expect adjectives to agree with the
explicit (masculine or feminine) river name, rather than with the
unstated feminine <strong>selë</strong>.</p>
<blockquote><p>The river name does decline.</p></blockquote>
<p>Ah, I think that answers the question "does the river name decline
when <strong>selë</strong> is used". Thanks.</p>
<blockquote><p>Foreign nouns can all be assimilated into Verdurian, and
therefore all decline. You choose the declination according to the
ending. (For personal names, Verdurians would manhandle the word in
order to get the right gender. Names in <b>-a</b> can of course be
either gender. ...)</p></blockquote>
<p>And if they're masculine, they decline like <strong>esta</strong>,
right? So <em>Nicola's</em> would be <strong>Nicole</strong> if it's a
woman's name and <strong>Nicolei</strong> if a man's. (Or for a
contrived case: <em>I gave it to the two Nicolas</em> would be
<strong>Ilet donai soin dhunin Nicolain</strong> for men and
<strong>Ilet donai soen dhunen Nicolen</strong> for women.) (On the
other hand, in this case, a Verdurian might be tempted to fit a
masculine <em>Nicola</em> into the mold of the already-known name
<strong>Nícolo</strong>, I suppose. Similarly, masculine
<em>Andrea</em> might turn into <strong>Andrey</strong>, I suspect. But
for non-Eledhe names, <em>Frodo's</em> would presumably be
<strong>Maurei</strong> rather than <strong>Maure</strong>.)</p>
<p>Cheers,<br>Philip.</p>
<hr><i>Mark responds:
<p>You're right about the rivers and their declensional details.
<p>And <b>beluana</b> is a mistake; at first I had <b>Soa Svetla e beluana</b>, but changed the river to show the masculine article, and forgot the adjective.
<p>And I can't add anything to the bit about names, either! Except
that when I talked about Consuelo, I forget that there's already
<a href="http://www.zompist.com/names.htm#Grammatical">a rule on feminizing
proper names</a>. So Consuelo would become <b>Consuele</b>,
and my old co-worker Vyju, an Indian woman, would be <b>Vaidzhi</b>.
<p>I think that covers everything except masculine names in -e, such as Wole (Soyinka). I'm not sure I like <b>any</b> of the alternatives-- <b>Uolo, Uola, Uoleh</b>. Maybe it would be better to treat it as an adjective, which does
give us a masculine declension in -e.
</I>
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