Epigraph: It's better to experiment with several systems than to follow the Slovio's example of creating one system (not caring about its quality) and sticking on it.
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In GS-Slovianski, there are four kinds of nouns:

1) the singular form ends in a consonant (i and u being counted as consonants for this purpose), the plural is formed by adding -i:

pes > pesi
dom > domi
jedinost' > jedinost'i
iglu > iglui
cunami > cunamii

2) the singular form ends in -a, the plural is formed by replacing it with -e:

kniga > knige

3) the singular form ends in -o, the plural is formed by replacing it with -esa:

pero > peresa
pismo > pismesa
slovo > slovesa

4) the singular form ends in -e, the plural is formed by replacing it with -ata:

ime > imata
more > morata
pisan'e > pisan'ata

Thanks to Hellerick for giving the basic idea of this system!


So the only free vowel ending remains to be -u and I think that it should be used for adjectives.

What would you say about the following system of deriving adjectives from nouns?

pes > pesovu
dom > domovu
jedinost' > jedinost'ovu
iglu > igluovu
cunami > cunamiovu

kniga > kniginu

pero > peresu
pismo > pismesu
slovo > slovesu

ime > imatu
more > moratu
pisan'e > pisan'atu


Of course, I'd have no problem with adopting the endings -uo (adverbs) and -esk from Slovio.

pes > pesi
dom > domi
iglu > iglui
cunami > cunamii
kniga > knige
pero > peresa
pismo > pismesa
more > morata
pisan'e > pisan'ata


I would actually make it:

iglu > iglu
cunami > cunami

and keep some words without a plural form because Japanese doesn't even HAVE a way to describe multiple cunami (except for "a lot of cunami" but we have that way too)

mor'e > mor'et'e

after you said that Czech and Polish rz/rx come from r' I think we should use mor'e form because Ukrainian often discards the palatalization of the letter r but it keeps it in plural and in cases

pisan'e -> pisan'at'e

I think t'e is better than ta because Ukranian uses t'i and Russian uses t'e and we usually prefer the e version
ta usually implies singular nouns
so let's change

kniga -> knigit'e

so as not to confuse them

that was me

here is my final table

pes > pesi
dom > domi
iglu > iglu
cunami > cunami
kniga -> knigit'e
pero > peresa
pismo > pismesa
mor'e > mor'et'e
pisan'e > pisan'at'e

Yes, you are right, singular "neuter" -e should be changed to -'e (in order not to be confuseable with "feminine" plural -e). So I have no problem with mor'e.

I also have no problem pisan'e > pisan'at'e.

But I don't understand why "books" should be knigit'e rather than knige ...

In terms of iglu' and cunami', I think that they are so rare words anyway that it is nothing wrong to have a creatable plural for them.

it should be knigit'e because if we change it to pisan'at'e we'll have an ambiguity:

is the original form pisan'e or pisan'ata?

therefore the a form has to change so we don't have to have that ambiguity

We'll have no "feminine" singular nouns ending in -ata, so this confusion won't exist.

so, no:

hata
vata
data
stigmata
komnata
palata
citata
granata
lopata
etc.

I don’t like the apostrophe. Maybe you should change the “-e” neuter ending.

Actually, the “-e” neuter words don’t have something special in them. And it “is not fair” that they don’t have “-es-” suffix. As already was mentioned, “-e” is result of palatization (i.e. had “j” before), so maybe you should show it:

morje — morjesa
pisanje — pisanjesa

Letter “j” is marker of “-e” word. (There can’t be any noun ending in “jo” in Slavic languages, because “o” systematically changed to “e” after palatalized consonant everywhere.)

Russians use apostrophes in their writing to show the soft sign. I was using j for the soft sign, but we agreed on the apostrophe because it's less ambiguous.

I see Russians write things like "Mne nado delat' domashnee zadanie"

If it’s possible to make a language without apostrophes, it should be made without apostrophes.

And what’s ambiguous here? I didn’t mean “j” to be soft sign, I did mean it to be pronounced.

The trouble is that such word can be mistaken for plural of “-ja” word.

Also the next spelling can be used:

morie — moriesa
pisanie — pisaniesa

But whatever sign you use before “-e”, I still don’t understand why “-e” and “-o” words should have different plural suffices, if they already distinguished by this '/j/i symbol.

But whatever sign you use before “-e”, I still don’t understand why “-e” and “-o” words should have different plural suffices, if they already distinguished by this '/j/i symbol.

You are right! I didn't nothice this on the first thinking. So we can have:

pero > peresa
pismo > pismesa
slovo > slovesa

mor'e > mor'esa
pisan'e > pisan'esa

Then there will also be no problem with words like vata, komnata, lopata etc.

I've re-read the GS-Slovianski page...

This apostrophe is really terrible ("Soc'alnu"!). Please, do something with it. At least replace it with "i" in position between a consonant and a vowel.

And many words in the dictionary now have to be re-written ... Though I like the form they have there more than what you're gonna create.

By the way, the language is called "GS-Slov'ansku" now?

' = ь
soc'alnu is just incorrect it should be socijalnu or socialnu

also, letters that stand for two sounds have been broken up

This apostrophe is really terrible ("Soc'alnu"!). Please, do something with it. At least replace it with "i" in position between a consonant and a vowel.

Originally, I had also proposed to express the palatalisation of the consonant by i. However, all my arguements were beaten in these discussions:

http://www.slovianski.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17
http://www.slovianski.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=162
http://www.slovianski.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117

Native Cyrillic writers (who I am not) say that for aesthetics and other reasons, the Cyrillic version has to have all these three letters: и, й, ь. That's why they should also be three in Latin: i, j, '.

By the way, the language is called "GS-Slov'ansku" now?

No, it will always be (GS-)Slovianski (the name of the language) as opposed to slov'ansku (a general word meaning "Slavic").

I was trying to find -esa words in Russian. I found only three of them:

- çàâåñà, curtain, screen
- ïîâåñà, rake (a wanton and shallow person)
- ïüåñà, play (a performance in theatre)

All the three are pretty rare in Russian, or easy avoidable at least.

It looks like -esa really is a good "pseudosuffix".

I changed http://www.langmaker.com/db/User:Gabriel_Svoboda/GS-Slovianski accordingly.

Why would you change it to морие that makes no sense

Another Eulenspiegelei of Esperantist Gabriel. Or in other words: Why to make things easy when it is possible to complicate them.