Prussian/Nominative Nouns

Masculine nouns usually end in s or is. Feminine nouns usually end in a, e, or i. Neuter nouns usually end in an. The Nominative case is for the subject of the sentence. (The man has a dog.) Vocabulary wīrs = man genā = woman būtwei = to be as = I tū = you tāns = he tenā = she tennan = it mes = we jūs = you tenēi = they sunnis = dog katta = cat buttan = house spīlakugis = ball Sentences As asma wīrs. = I am a man. Tū assei genā. = You are a woman. Tāns ast sunnis. = He is a dog. Tenā ast katta.= She is a cat. Tenan ast buttan. = It is a house. As you notice with the last three sentences, the pronouns correspond with the ending of their nouns. And ofcourse, the sentences make sense in english as dogs and cats could be male and female and a house is neuter. However, let's take an object with a masculine ending. Tāns ast spīlakugis. = It is a ball. Balls obviously cannot be men, however as with all the other European languages, objects can be masculine and feminine depending on their endings. In this case, -is is a masculine ending, making it male. (Also if you know german, ball look similar to Spielkugel. :D ) Now let's make the above sentences plural. Mes asmai wīrai. = We are men. Jūs astei gennas. = You are a women. Notice that genā has two ns and a normal a. This is because the base, gen, is a cvc noun. Besides the subject, only the dative plural (genāmans) has one ending constanant and, if it has it the special character ending in cvc nouns. Tenēi ast sunnjai. = They are dogs. Tenēi ast buttāi. = They are houses. Summary In this lesson, we have learned nominative noun endings, nominative pronouns, and the verb to be. Noun Endings Masculine -s: s, ai -is: is, jai Feminine -a: a, as -e: e, is -i: i, is Neuter -an: an, āi Pronouns and To be The Prussian verb for to be is būtwei. As asma Tū assei Tāns ast Tenā Tenan Mes asmai Jūs astei Tenēi ast