Istro-Romanian grammar

The grammar of the Istro-Romanian language shares similar grammar with other Eastern Romance languages.

Morphology

The evolution of Istro-Romanian from Daco-Romanian shows two distinct features:
# Noun declination shows a rationalisation of forms: normal noun declination of Romanian has almost totally disappeared in Istro-Romanian;
# Whereas verbal inflexion is more conservative and its evolution is not so pronounced.

Nouns

The article has two forms: definite and indefinite. The definite article may be nominal or adjectival. The nominal being added to nouns, and the adjectival placed before adjectives.

The nominal forms are: for masculine nouns: -l and -le, for feminine -a in the singular, and for masculine -i and feminine -le in the plural.

However, as in spoken Daco-Romanian the -l of the masculine singular definite article is dropped leaving the linking -u- vowel, e.g. DR lupul > IR lupu ("the wolf"), DR ursul > IR ursu ("the bear"), DR mielul > IR mľelu ("the lamb").

The -le ending is used for all masculine singular nouns ending in -e, e.g. fråtele ("the brother"), sorele ("the sun"), cărele ("the dog").

Some examples of Masculine nouns showing case endings, nominative=accusative, genitive=dative. The vocative case is not shown as this normally corresponds with the nominative.

*fiľ ("son"), fiľi (pl.)

Feminine nouns

The -a replaces -ĕ and -e, e.g. cåsĕ > cåsa ("the house"), nopte > nopta ("the night"); however a few feminine nouns ending in a stressed -e behave differently, e.g. ste > stevu ("the star"), ne > nevu ("the snow").

*fetĕ ("girl"), fete (pl.)

Neuter nouns behave as Masculine nouns in the singular and Feminine in the plural (sometimes known as Mixed nouns)

*bråţ ("arm"), bråţe (pl.) - bråţu ("the arm"), bråţele (pl.)
*os ("bone"), ose (pl.) - osu ("the bone"), osele (pl.)
*zid ("wall"), zidur (pl.) - zidu ("the wall"), zidurle (pl.)
*plug ("plough"), plugur (pl.) - plugu ("the plough"), plugurle (pl.)

The forms of the adjectival article are "ćela" for the masculine and "ćå" for the feminine singular, and in the plural masculine "ćeľ" and feminine "ćåle", e.g. ćela bur ("the good one").

The masculine indefinite article is "un" and feminine is "o". The declination of the indefinite article has disappeared. Examples: un om ("a man"), un cå ("a horse"), o misĕ ("a table"), o båbĕ ("an old woman").

Adjectives

Adjectives also have three genders, the masculine and feminine forms from the Latin, while the neuter form is of Slavic origin, under the syntactic influence of the use of neuters in Slavic. E.g. bur, burĕ, buro ("good"). The comparative adjective is måi bur ("better") and the superlative is ćel måi bur ("the best").

The adjective may precede the noun: bura zi ("(the)good day"), which in itself can be made definite by the change of -ĕ to -a; or follows the noun: feta muşåtĕ ("the beautiful girl").

Pronouns

Definite pronouns can be personal, possessive, demonstrative, relative and interrogative.

Personal pronouns

e.g. m-åm ărs ("I laughed"), l-åi vezut ("you saw him")

Possessive pronouns:

e.g. mev ćåće ("my father"), lui căre ("his dog"), ľei måie ("her mother"), noştri cåľ ("our horses")

Demonstrative pronouns

*this: "ćest, ćåsta"
*these: "ćeşť, ćåste"

May also begin with ţ- or ť- e.g. ţest om ("this man")
*that: "ćel, ćå"
*those: "ćeľ, ćåle"

Likewise may begin with ţ- e.g. ţåle lingure ("those spoons")
*this one: "ćesta-istu, ćåsta-ista"
*that one: "ćela-istu, ćåista"
*that other one: "ćela-åt, ćå-åtĕ"
*those other ones: "ćeľ-åľţi, ćåle-åte"

Relative pronouns

*which: "cåre" / "cårle", pl. "cårli"

Interrogative pronouns

*who: "ćire" / "će"
*which: "cåre" / "cårle", pl. "cårli"
*which one: "căt"

Indefinite pronouns

(M - F)

one: "un" - "o"

some: "vrun" - "vro"

one/a: "ur" - "o"

not a: "ničur" - "ničurĕ"

nothing: "nimic"

something: "ćeva"

other: "åt" - "åta" - "åto"

each: "saki" - "saca" - "saco"

whichever: "cătcoder"

Numerals

Cardinal numbers

The majority of cardinal numbers are from Latin stock, with several borrowings from the local Slavic

# un/ur (M), o (F)
# doi (M), do (F)
# trei
# påtru
# ćinć / ţinţ
# şåse
# şåpte
# opt / osăn
# devet
# zåće / zeće / deset
# urprezåće / iednaist
# doiprezåće / dvanaist
# treiprezåće / trenaist19. devetprezåće

20. dovotezåće / dvadeset / dvaiset

21. dovotezåće şi ur

30. treivotezåće

40. cvårnaru

50. ćinćvotezåće

...

100. sto

101. sto şi ur

200. dovotesto

1000. miľår / tisuť / tåvžânt

Notes:

11 is composed of '1 on 10' "ur-pre-zåće"

20 is composed of '2 times 10' "do-vote-zåće", likewise, 200 is '2 times 100' "do-vote-sto"

1000 "miľår" comes from Venetian dialect, "tisuť" from Slavic, and "tåvžânt" from German.

Ordinal

(M - F)

1st. "prvi" - "prva"

2nd. "doile" - "dova"

3rd. "treile" - "treia"

4th. "påtrile" - "påtra"

5th. "ćinćile" - "ćinća"

6th. "şåsele" - "şåsa"

7th. "şåptele" - "şåpta"

8th. "osmule" - "osma"

9th. "devetile" - "deveta"

10th. "desetile" - "deseta"

last "zådni" / "zădăńu" - "zådńa"

References

* A. Kovačec: Notes sur les formes de cas en istroroumain. Studia Romanica 13-14: 75-84, Zagreb 1962
* A. Kovačec: Certaines modifications grammaticales des 'quantitatifs' et 'qualitatifs' istroroumains dues a l' influence croate. Studia Romanica 23: 195-210, Zagreb 1967
* A. Kovačec: Le calque lexical d' apres le croate comme cause de certains changements grammaticaux istroroumains. Actele de XII Congres International de Lingvistica si Filologie Romanica, vol. 2: 1127-1131, Bucuresti 1971
* A. Kovačec: Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik s gramatikom i tekstovima "(Glosar Istroroman-Croat cu gramatica si texte)". Verba moritura vol. I, 1 - 378 p. Mediteran, Pula 1998

ee also

* Istria
* Istro-Romanians
* Istro-Romanian language

External links

* [http://www.istrianet.org/istria/linguistics/istrorumeno/index.htm Istro-Romanian Community Worldwide, a subdivision of Istria on the Internet]
* [http://www.istro-romanian.net The Istro-romanians in Croatia]
* [http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_report.html#IRumanian UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages - entry for Istro-Romanian]