Here's an overview of the Old Oxic nominal system, as adopted from the forum post. The nominal system has undergone some levelling in its journey from PIE, but has also developed a few new complications, mainly from different development of stressed and unstressed vowels. All three numbers and all three genders have remained, but the case system has been reduced to nominative, accusative, vocative, locative, "oblique" (a merger of the remaining cases derived from the genitive in the singular and dual and the dative/ablative in the plural).
Vocatives have separate forms only in the singulars of some nouns, and have been leveled to the point that it is best to think of them merely as a modification of the nominative; therefore I will not clutter up the declension tables with them, and describe them at the end.
Here's the declension of the a-stem feminines. There are two subdeclensions of a-stems, those that were formerly accented on their stem (example
ekā, ekās "mare"), and those that were formerly accented on their ending (
aso, apsos "wasp"). We'll take the stem-accents first:
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | ekā | eka | ekās |
Accusative | ekān | eka | ekās |
Locative | eke | ekāwos | ekāsu |
Oblique | ekās | ekāwos | ekābas |
Here is an ending-accent:
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | aso | ase | asos |
Accusative | ason | ase | asos |
Locative | asā | asowos | asosu |
Oblique | asos | asowos | asobas |
Despite the differences, the two declensions that have been formed from the a-stems share some similarities. Note that the nominative and accusative differ only in the singular, that the oblique singular is identical to the nom./acc. plural, and that the oblique merges with the locative in the dual (this is true of all genders). A-stems have no separate vocative.
Moving on to the o-stems. There are also two subdeclensions of o-stems, those which were formerly accented on their stem (example
etas, etaša, "path"), and those which were formerly accented on their endings (example
nisrās, nisrāša, "nest"). Here's
etas:
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | etas | etā | etās |
Accusative | etan | etā | etās |
Locative | eti | etayos | etasu |
Oblique | etaša | etayos | etabas |
Here's
nisrās.
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | nisrās | nisro | nisres |
Accusative | nisrān | nisro | nisros |
Locative | nisri | nisrāwos | nisresu |
Oblique | nisrāša | nisrāwos | nisrābas |
Note some differences in the endings here too, mainly changed vowels. The o-stem masculines have separate vocative forms,
-a for stem-accents and
-ā for ending-accents. (We'll learn why at the end of this post).
The o-stem neuters, to nobody's surprise, only differ from the masculines in their nominative and accusative (and vocative, which merges with the former two, of course). Here's a stem-accent,
grewan, grewaša "reed, rush". Only the nom/acc needs to be presented.
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative/Accusative | grewan | grewa | grewā |
And here's an ending-accent,
karān, karāša "greed".
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative/Accusative | karān | kare | karo |
A subclass of o-stems, both masculine and neuter, have -u- in many forms. Here is an example (stem-accents and ending-accents are not differentiated in this class),
ekus, ekuša, "horse":
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | ekus | ekā | ekas |
Accusative | ekun | ekā | ekās |
Locative | eki | ekuwās | ekubas |
Oblique | ekuša | ekuwās | ekesu |
The vocative is
eku.
And here is a neuter,
dārkun, darkuša "evening meal":
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative/Accusative | dārkun | dārka | dārkā |
Moving beyond the a- and o-stems, we move to the u-stems. From here on out stem- and accent-stems are not differentiated.
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | kretus | kreta | kretawas |
Accusative | kretun | kreta | kretos |
Locative | kretuwi | kretuwos | kretusu |
Oblique | kretus | kretuwos | kretubas |
The vocative is
kretu.
Our neuter is
dāru, dārus "tree":
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative/Accusative | dāru | dāra | dārā |
Here are the i-stems. These also don't have accent subclasses. Here's the feminine
medis, medis, "mind" (vocative
medi).
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | medis | meda | medayas |
Accusative | medin | meda | medas |
Locative | medi | mediyos | medisu |
Oblique | medis | mediyos | medibas |
...and a neuter,
āsti, āstis "bone".
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative/Accusative | āsti | āsta | āstā |
Finally, we have the consonant stems, which are sort of a grab-bag declension where nothing else fits. Characteristic of the masculines/feminines is
nes, netas, "night". The PIE thematic vowels here were a mix between e and o, with some i and ey imported from the i-stems. As far as stem mutation goes, these have all been treated as e or i (this causes palatalization of velars). No separate vocative except in r-stems (to be explained below).
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative | nes | neta | netas |
Accusative | neta | neta | netas |
Locative | neti | netiyās | netisu |
Oblique | netas | netibān | netibas |
And here's a neuter,
nebas, nebasas "cloud":
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|
Nominative/Accusative | nebas | nebasa | nebasā |
(You may be noticing a general theme with the neuters by now).
The consonant declension is the two-stem declension in Old Oxic, much like the grab-bag "third declension" of Latin and Greek, whether the stem must be derived from the genitive (or in this case, the oblique). It also includes the r-stems, such as
hatar, hatras "father" and
protar, protras "brother". R-stems have a nominative singular in
-ar and a stem ending in
-r- elsewhere.
A final note on vocatives. Although Oxic had a vocative case in the singular, I have not shown it in the paradigms since it is fairly simple to form and would just add clutter. Here are the rules for vocatives:
-If the noun is a masculine o-stem or a non-neuter i- or u-stem, one simply chops the
-s off the nom. sing. ending. In the case of the ending-stem o-stems this is by analogy.
-If the noun is an r-stem, which otherwise pattern with the consonant stem, drop
-ar and add
-er:
ā proter!
And that's it. Other nouns have no separate vocative.
Adjectives
Adjectives are relatively straightforward and do not need their own declension tables. Adjectives may be either a/o-stem (in which case they decline as an a-stem for feminines and an o-stem for masculines and neuters- here they will have the same accent-class throughout), i-stem (identical masculine and feminine i-stem endings, separate neuter i-stem endings), or u-stem (identical masculine and feminine u-stem endings, separate neuter). They're pretty unremarkable- they behave like adjectives in every other dead IE language.
All in all, Oxic's nominal system is not terribly painful. It has a number of sub-declensions, yes, but the accent-based ones are only found in the o-stems and a-stems, and you can always decline a noun given its nominative, oblique and gender, and an adjective given its class.