Languary Day 7: Plurals

[aldersprig]

If you're following this, you may have noticed that I'm fascinated by plurals with grammatical number.

So in making a plural to make the words Whispers Drop, I decided to make several plural forms.

-er is the most commonly used, and indicates a generic plural.

-ara indicates part of a group, "those four students," for instance.

-ore indicates all of a particular thing.

And here's another thing to add in!

Whisper is ssussu.

To make this plural, we'll repeat the first consonant (in this case the only consonant): ssussusser.

(Rule, courtest thnidu: "When pluralizing, if the word ends in a vowel copy the first consonant onto the end before adding the ending.")

Comments

[inventrix]

*hisses at you*

look I'm saying Whispers ;D

[aldersprig]

Yep! :-D

[thnidu]

Is the consonant added before the ending so you don't get 2 vowels together? In other words, is the rule

"When pluralizing with '-er', if the word ends in a vowel copy the first consonant onto the end before adding the ending."

?

[aldersprig]

"When pluralizing with '-er', if the word ends in a vowel copy the first consonant onto the end before adding the ending."

yep.

[thnidu]

Thanks. And since I still don't have a firm grip on the orthography, is "er" pronounced the same way it is in English?

[aldersprig]

Like at the end of water or flower, yes.

[thnidu]

Is "er" (not necessarily in this ending) ever stressed?

[aldersprig]

I... don't know yet!
I shall add it to the list to figure out.

[thnidu]

OK :-)

Am I bothering you with all these questions?

(Nice kitty!)

[aldersprig]

Thanks! Anke drew it for me! :-)

Nope, as long as you're fine with lots of "idunnoyet" :-)

[thnidu]

"Idunnoyet" is a lot better than an arbitrary snap decision that you have to fight your way around later.

[aldersprig]

Yeah, I agree. Although at this stage I'm fine backchanging anything that really doesn't work.