Hello, folks:

The following questions were posted in the Kaldar folder, and since Gnomes speak Gorbesh too, I'm posting the answers to them here.

<1) Can past participles be used as nouns (as they can in English)? If so, are they conjugated in any special way? For example, can I translate "The fallen will walk" as "Boshihahi olitent"? Here "boshihe" is "to fall", "boshiha" is the past participle, and then "-hi" is the plural nominative suffix.
-- The short answer is "yes". The longer answer is this: Gorbesh determines the part of speech of a word by its function. So (to use English examples), "fallen" in "The fallen leaves are dry" is a participle because it functions as an adjective to modify a noun. In "The fallen shall walk", "fallen" is a gerund because it functions as a noun. And gerunds take the same suffixes as nouns.

<2) What happens when I add the singular genitive ("-a") or objective ("-am") suffix to a noun that already ends in "a"? Do I just get a double "a"? For example, does "Remember the alliance" become "Fanet golaam"? Here "gola" is "alliance".
-- There's no "aa" combination in Gorbesh. A phrase like "the merchant's caravan" would be translated as "swaja vardo", and "I saw the merchant" as "Ket edirke swajam."
Thus: merchant [n] Nominative: swaja Genitive: swaja Objective: swajam

<2a) How would you pronounce "golaa"? Three syllables, or is "aa" a single vowel sound? See also question 3.
-- "golaa" doesn't occur.

<3) How is an unstressed "a" pronounced? Gorbesh Grammar says a stressed "a" is pronounced like "cat", but then doesn't say how to do unstressed. For example, two-syllable words have the stress on the first syllable, so "gola" has an unstressed "a".
-- An unstressed "a" is a weak central vowel, pronounced like the first vowel of "alive" or the last vowel of "cola".

<4) When using a genitive noun to modify another noun, is the genitive placed after the modified noun, the way adjectives are? For example, does "king killer" become "ruazin uchinava"? Here "ruazin" is "killer" (made by adding the "-in" agent suffix to "ruaze"), and "uchinav" is "king".
-- It's placed after the noun: it's functioning as an adjective, so it takes the place of an adjective in the phrase.

<5) When using adverbs to modify adjectives, where are they placed? Gorbesh Grammar says they come after the verb they modify; is it the same for modifying adjectives? For example, does "very red dog" become "amange lala hon"? Here "amange" is "dog", "lala" is "red", and "hon" is "very".
-- The adverb comes before an adjective it modifies.

<6) What are the rules for linking verbs? Special conjugations, how are adjectives placed, etc. For example, how would I say "I am tall"? Is it just "Ket os onoba"?
-- Page 5 in the Gorbesh Grammar has the whole conjugation of "be". For the placement of predicate adjectives, consider the Gnomish proverb on page 1 of "A Gorbesh Dictionary, Common to Gorbesh":
"Liduas ose toful bat luen ose ket"
Life is short and so am I.
That is, Gorbesh has options with this placement. Using English examples, one could say "life is short" or "short is life".

The Gorbesh Grammar has been updated to include this information, and the Common to Gorbesh dictionary has been updated to provide translations for the following words: bear [v], comet [n], cow [n], earth/land [n], force [v], herd [v], mammoth [n], mead [n], owl [n], planet [n], raven [n], rock [n], shadow [n], sheep [n], water [n], yield [v].

Bartlebee