4.6 KiB
title: lántas pronoun update date: 2024-11-25 tags: [lántas, conlangs] conlang: laantas summary: first-person neopronouns. and… neoinflections? ...
so my "main" conlang @lántas@ is actually kind of old at this point. old enough that when i made the personal pronouns, i didn't know that plurality was a thing that existed, so until today, the first person pronouns were {!ká} in the singular, and {!til} in the [(grammatical)]{.note} plural. except that {til} is an @inclusive@ pronoun, meaning it can only be used when the listener is included. which, as you can see from the fact it has a wikipedia article, is a thing that real life languages do sometimes.
however, when someone uses "we" to mean "me and my headmates", that is (usually??) an exclusive usage. which means you can't use {til}, or the first-person plural verb inflection, and instead have to say {#kakas rú, rúl} {kakas rú(l)}, or "me and them". which is… pretty awkward.
it's time to get a new one.
pronouns
:::{.figure .hugescr .floating .right}
{#kál}
:::
it seems that it would be pretty unlikely, given people's general attitudes, that a personal pronoun dedicated to plurality would arise naturally. so this is the perfect opportunity to have a @neopronoun@. without grammatical gender existing in the first place, there's no particular pressure for a new third-person pronoun to crop up. {!rú} (or {!rúl}) fits everyone just fine. as far as i know, anyway.
so, {!kál}. it is pretty transparently the singular pronoun with the regular plural ending, {!ká–l}. but that's fine. it fits in with {!rú}, {!rúl} 'he/she/they (sg)/etc, they (pl)', and almost with {!sur}, {!sual} 'you (sg)/you (pl)' too.
{!kál} inflects almost like a regular noun with {!ka–} stem, except for the COM, which matches {!tiksł} and {!ruksł}, and the locative cases, which keep the long vowel like {!ká} does.
in the table !SPL! stands for @system plural@ i guess. (and !IPL! for @inclusive plural@; the old thing.)
header-includes: |
...
| 1SG | 1SPL | 1EPL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NOM | `{!ká}` | `{!kál}` | `{!til}` |
| GEN | `{!kat}` | `{!katł}` | `{!tial}` |
| COM | `{!kakas}` | `{!kaksł}` | `{!tiksł}` |
| CAR | `{!kassa}` | `{!kassal}` | `{!tissal}` |
| INS | `{!kala}` | `{!kalal}` | `{!tilla}` |
| ESS | `{!kugu}` | `{!kugul}` | `{!tigul}` |
| TRA | `{!kasti}` | `{!kastil}` | `{!tistil}` |
| EXE | `{!kaču}` | `{!kačul}` | `{!tičul}` |
| LOC | `{!ká–}` | `{!ká–l}` | `{!tí–l}` |
see §3–4 of the noun page for inadequate descriptions of these cases that one day i will maybe expand on.
verb inflections
:::{.figure .hugescr .floating .right}
{#–káš}
{#–kúš}
:::
the existing person suffixes for verbs actually have no resemblance at all to the pronouns. the new one does though. after all, it's new! it's {!–káš} for the subject and {!–kúš} for the object.
| 1SG | 1SPL | 1EPL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBJ | `{!–na}` | `{!–káš}` | `{!–náš}` |
| OBJ | `{!–du}` | `{!–kúš}` | `{!–dúš}` |