As it has already been said, there are three cases: Nominative, Dative, and Accusative. In older stages of the language there used to be as many as five of them: Genitive and Vocative did not make it to this day.
All the constructions with the Genitive case where substituted by the combination of the preposition f' and the word in the Dative case, e.g. f'Petra keuna 'Peter's wife', ougna f'min aiþin 'my mother's eyes'. As seen in the examples, the word in the Dative ('Peter' in the former, 'my mother' in the latter) may be placed either before the word in the Nominative or after it. The former variant is a bit more preferable, while the second is more often use when the group in the Genitive is too long, e.g. sxini f'þin granim sxounim virdim ougnam 'the glance of your beautiful big green eyes'.
As for the Vocative case, although it seems to have disappeared many centuries ago, there are special vocative forms for masculine words of the first declension (those ending in -s) in the modern language. Those words drop the final -s in the Nominative when the object is addressed, so the form becomes identical to that of the Accusative case. For example, the word 'friend' is frjonds in the general Nominative, but when we address somebody with the words 'my friend!', the word drops the Nominative ending: min frjond!
Moreover, the forms without -s are used in forms of address and titles even when the person in question is not being directly addressed. Thus, the word doktors 'doctor' becomes doktor when it precedes a name: doktor Jons 'Dr. Jons'. Some examples of this phenomenon include kung Gundar 'King Gunther', professor Kvernjens 'Professor Kvernjens', froj Simonsun 'Mr. Simonsun' etc.
The same is true for given names: they generally don't have the -s ending, so Peter is Petr (not *Petrs), John is Joxan or Jon (not *Joxans, Jons), and James is Jakob (not *Jakobus). The only exceptions are the names Maþais 'Matthew' and Andrais 'Andrew' - they drop the final -s in the Dative and the Accusative.
As for the cases existing in the modern language, their usage is as following:
- Nominative - as the subject of a sentence (sa burs itit ain apl 'the boy eats an apple');
- Dative - after a preposition (sa burs ist in s'xuza 'the boy is in the house') or - only for pronouns - when the sense of the Dative case is implied (Ik gab þis ain sxilling 'I gave you one schilling')
- Accusative - after a verb (sa burs itit ain apl 'the boy eats an apple') or after prepositions of movement (in apa doupjen 'to dive into the river', þer gaba gangen 'to go through the forest').
Different prepositions can be seen in the table below.
In addition to these, there is also an important preposition at meaning 'about', e.g. ain spill at drakam 'a story about dragons'.
A couple of words should be said about the preposition f' 'of'. It has an alternative form, a, which is used to break bulky consonant clusters, e.g. and a stillin 'end of silence' (not *and f'stillin). This form is also used before words beginning with þ-, f-, v-, e.g. xivi a vina 'the colour of wine'.
When the preposition f' precedes the definite article sa, they blend together, a contracted form as is used: vorda as poetin 'the poet's words'. This is similar to French forms 'du' (de + le) and 'des' (de + les) and German forms 'vor' (von + der), 'vom' (von + dem).
Conjunctions include the following words: i(d), jax'and', eþ 'or', ibi 'if' þo, ak 'but', unte, þej 'because', und 'for', i 'that', sveþox, þobi, jabi 'although', dut 'to, so that', þi 'than'.
There are two words for 'and': i(d) and jax (i becomes id before vowels). There is some difference in how they are used:
- When more than two objects are enumerated (my mother, my father, my sister and my brother), the word jax (not i) is used before the last enumerated word: min aiþi, min atta, min svistra jax min brodrs.
- When only two objects are enumerated (war and peace), both words are acceptable, but jax is a little more preferable than i in this case.
- With verbs, i is used two equivalent parts of a sentence: ik im drinkend kafa i sxounend TV 'I'm drinking coffee and watching TV'.
- When these words connect two parts of a complex sentence, the meaning expressed by them differs: i signifies a cause-and-effect relationship (is kam, i si idja 'he came, so she left'), while jax signifies an opposition (is kam, jax si idja 'he came, while she left'). In this aspect, the difference is the same as the one between the Russian words и and а.
As for the two words with the meaning 'but', the difference between them is more subtle, but one can say that ak is generally used to denote a stronger contrast than þo, being closer to English words like 'however', 'although' etc.
The most important interjections include the following: ja 'yes', ne 'no', ej or oj 'hey', nu 'well'.
All the constructions with the Genitive case where substituted by the combination of the preposition f' and the word in the Dative case, e.g. f'Petra keuna 'Peter's wife', ougna f'min aiþin 'my mother's eyes'. As seen in the examples, the word in the Dative ('Peter' in the former, 'my mother' in the latter) may be placed either before the word in the Nominative or after it. The former variant is a bit more preferable, while the second is more often use when the group in the Genitive is too long, e.g. sxini f'þin granim sxounim virdim ougnam 'the glance of your beautiful big green eyes'.
As for the Vocative case, although it seems to have disappeared many centuries ago, there are special vocative forms for masculine words of the first declension (those ending in -s) in the modern language. Those words drop the final -s in the Nominative when the object is addressed, so the form becomes identical to that of the Accusative case. For example, the word 'friend' is frjonds in the general Nominative, but when we address somebody with the words 'my friend!', the word drops the Nominative ending: min frjond!
Moreover, the forms without -s are used in forms of address and titles even when the person in question is not being directly addressed. Thus, the word doktors 'doctor' becomes doktor when it precedes a name: doktor Jons 'Dr. Jons'. Some examples of this phenomenon include kung Gundar 'King Gunther', professor Kvernjens 'Professor Kvernjens', froj Simonsun 'Mr. Simonsun' etc.
The same is true for given names: they generally don't have the -s ending, so Peter is Petr (not *Petrs), John is Joxan or Jon (not *Joxans, Jons), and James is Jakob (not *Jakobus). The only exceptions are the names Maþais 'Matthew' and Andrais 'Andrew' - they drop the final -s in the Dative and the Accusative.
As for the cases existing in the modern language, their usage is as following:
- Nominative - as the subject of a sentence (sa burs itit ain apl 'the boy eats an apple');
- Dative - after a preposition (sa burs ist in s'xuza 'the boy is in the house') or - only for pronouns - when the sense of the Dative case is implied (Ik gab þis ain sxilling 'I gave you one schilling')
- Accusative - after a verb (sa burs itit ain apl 'the boy eats an apple') or after prepositions of movement (in apa doupjen 'to dive into the river', þer gaba gangen 'to go through the forest').
Different prepositions can be seen in the table below.
In addition to these, there is also an important preposition at meaning 'about', e.g. ain spill at drakam 'a story about dragons'.
A couple of words should be said about the preposition f' 'of'. It has an alternative form, a, which is used to break bulky consonant clusters, e.g. and a stillin 'end of silence' (not *and f'stillin). This form is also used before words beginning with þ-, f-, v-, e.g. xivi a vina 'the colour of wine'.
When the preposition f' precedes the definite article sa, they blend together, a contracted form as is used: vorda as poetin 'the poet's words'. This is similar to French forms 'du' (de + le) and 'des' (de + les) and German forms 'vor' (von + der), 'vom' (von + dem).
Conjunctions include the following words: i(d), jax'and', eþ 'or', ibi 'if' þo, ak 'but', unte, þej 'because', und 'for', i 'that', sveþox, þobi, jabi 'although', dut 'to, so that', þi 'than'.
There are two words for 'and': i(d) and jax (i becomes id before vowels). There is some difference in how they are used:
- When more than two objects are enumerated (my mother, my father, my sister and my brother), the word jax (not i) is used before the last enumerated word: min aiþi, min atta, min svistra jax min brodrs.
- When only two objects are enumerated (war and peace), both words are acceptable, but jax is a little more preferable than i in this case.
- With verbs, i is used two equivalent parts of a sentence: ik im drinkend kafa i sxounend TV 'I'm drinking coffee and watching TV'.
- When these words connect two parts of a complex sentence, the meaning expressed by them differs: i signifies a cause-and-effect relationship (is kam, i si idja 'he came, so she left'), while jax signifies an opposition (is kam, jax si idja 'he came, while she left'). In this aspect, the difference is the same as the one between the Russian words и and а.
As for the two words with the meaning 'but', the difference between them is more subtle, but one can say that ak is generally used to denote a stronger contrast than þo, being closer to English words like 'however', 'although' etc.
The most important interjections include the following: ja 'yes', ne 'no', ej or oj 'hey', nu 'well'.
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