User:Aegon/High Valyrian Tutorial/1-2: Difference between revisions

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| colspan="6" | '''Explanation'''- The ''good'' boy loves the ''silver'' wolf.
| colspan="6" | '''Explanation'''- The ''good'' boy loves the ''silver'' wolf.
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| ''High Valyrian:'' || Taoba || '''sȳz''' || zokle<sup>(1)</sup> || '''gēlenke'''<sup>(2)</sup> (acc) || jorrāelza<sup>(3)</sup> (acc).
| ''High Valyrian:'' || Taoba || '''sȳz''' || zokle<sup>(1)</sup> || '''gēlenke'''<sup>(2)</sup> || jorrāelza<sup>(3)</sup>.
|-
|-
| ''English:'' || [The] boy || '''good''' || [the] wolf || '''silver''' || [he] loves.  
| ''English:'' || [The] boy || '''good''' || [the] wolf || '''silver''' || [he] loves.  

Revision as of 09:54, 19 October 2021

Lesson 2| Adjectives

Note: copy/paste from Latin wikibook to see what it looks like.

Overview of Adjectives

An adjective is simply any word that describes a noun, such as an object or subject in a sentence. Of course, whole phrases may be used to describe nouns, but adjectives are individual words. In English, for example:

The red dog attacked the crazy fox.

An adjective can also be used in a sentence opposite a form of "to be." (called a predicate adjective)

The boy is good.

In High Valyrian, the same is true.

Vocabulary

Lesson Vocabulary
High Valyrian English
gēlenka (adj. I) silver-colored, silver like
quba (adj. I) low (physically, in status or quality); poor, bad, inferior; early (temporally)
byka (adj. I) small
dokimare (adj. II) seriousness, studiousness, discipline, drive, strength, resolve, focus
olvie (adj. III) many, much
zokla (1lun.) wolf

Key to Vocabulary:

  • 1lun. = first lunar

Adjectives in High Valyrian

Like nouns, adjectives in High Valyrian are declined. The vast majority are of class I (kostōba -ys -on -or) and the rest are split rather evenly between class II (litse -ior) and class III (sylvie -ior). All such adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in gender, number, and case.

Class II and class III adjectives merge the lunar and solar, and the terrestrial and aquatic. Thusly, class II and class III adjectives have two genders as opposed to the four of a class I adjective.

Class I adjectives will look like the adjective rōva (big, large):

rōva (lunar), rōvys (solar), rōvon (terrestrial), rōvor (aquatic).

Class II and class III adjectives typically look more like sylvie (wise).

sylvie (lunar and solar), sylvior (terrestrial and aquatic).

Adjectives often come before the word they describe; this is called prepositive. However, they may come after the word in the more formal postpositive style. The main differences revolve around the prepositive form shortening case markings, which are clearer in the postpositive. The adjective must appear either before or after the noun it modifies.

For example:

Explanation- The good boy loves the silver wolf.
High Valyrian: Taoba sȳz zokle(1) gēlenke(2) jorrāelza(3).
English: [The] boy good [the] wolf silver [he] loves.
  • (1) zokla, wolf (1lun.). zokle, (acc.)
  • (2) gēlenka, silver (adj. I). gēlenke, (acc.)
  • (3) jorrāelagon, to love. jorrāelza, [he] loves

Sȳz, a class II adjective, is singular, nominative, and agrees with the lunar taoba, the word it is describing.

Gēlenke, a class I adjective, is singular, accusative, and lunar to agree with zokle. Zokle is accusative because it is the object of jorrāelza.

Here is an example of plural adjectives:

Explanation- The good boys love the silver wolves.
High Valyrian: Taobi (plur) sȳri (plur) zoklī (plur, acc) gēlenkī (plur, acc) jorrāelzi (3p plur).
English: [The] boys good [the] wolves silver [they] love.

The word sȳz becomes sȳri to agree with the plural taobi and the word gēlenke becomes gēlenkī to agree with the accusative plural zoklī.

However, if a girl happened to love that boy:

Explanation- The good girl loves the good boy.
Latin: Riña sȳz taobe (acc) sȳz (acc) jorrāelza.
English: [The] girl good [the] boy good [she] loves.

Sȳz, like all class II and class III adjectives, has the same form in the accusative as in the nominative.

Finally, if the girl happened to be the silver wolf:

Explanation- The silver wolf loves the good boy.
High Valyrian: Zokla gēlenka taobe (acc) sȳz (acc) jorrāelza.
English: [The] wolf silver [the] boy good [she] loves.

Recall, High Valyrian does not have masculine or feminine words; a male wolf or a female wolf would be zokla. Don't assume an '-a' is feminine!

Adjectives must agree in gender, number, and case. There is no such concept as agreement in declension; an adjective of any class can modify a noun of any gender in any declination.

The Positive, Comparative, and Superlative Adjectives

The positive form of the adjective is the plain form of the adjective (e.g. good), the comparative form is used to compare two things (e.g. better), and the superlative form is used to compare more than two things (e.g. best).

To make class I High Valyrian adjectives comparative you add -ykta to the adjective, for class II use -kta, and for class III use -ikta. To translate back into English you would say either the adjective -er (e.g. taller) or more the adjective (e.g. more tall).

To form the superlative you add -āje to class I adjectives, -je to class II, and -ije to class III. This translates to either the adjective -est (e.g. strongest) or most the adjective (e.g. most strong).

However not all adjectives follow this rule; the only known irregular is litse making the comparative līsta (prettier) and līje (prettiest).

The following are example adjectives and their English translations:

Example Adjectives
Class English Positive Comparative Superlative
I bad quba qubykta qubāje
I small byka bykykta bykāje
I large rōva rōvykta rōvāje
II good sȳz sȳrkta sȳrje
II focused dokimare dokimarkta dokimarje
III much olvie olvikta olvije

Exercise

Translate the following High Valyrian to English.

Attribution

"Lesson 2-Adjectives" by S. W. Farnsworth et al is licensed under CC BY 3.0 / This adaptation for High Valyrian aims to retain the format and pedagogy from the original