I've put a lot of work on fleshing out the nominal case system, but I still have to figure out what to do with my pronouns and verbal system.
My main goal is that I want pronouns (which exist mainly for emphatic purposes) and pronominal suffixes to have a nominative form and an oblique form. This is what I have so far:
Nominative:
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SG / PL
1: nV / tV or dV
2: mV
3: tsV > tV or sV
So far I have only come up with nominative and oblique forms for the first persons:
NOM:
ā-n- and
ā-d- >
ān-am and
ād-am
OBL:
na-ğ- and
da-ğ- >
nāy- and
dāy- (e.g.
nāy-as [ACC] and
nāy-an [INS])
possessive/oblique suffixes:
-(n)na and
-(t)ta
There is also the matter of the case system. Before Vrkhazhian had grammatical cases, its ancestor had a basic noun class system (NAN = neuter animate, NIN = neuter inanimate):
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SG / PL
FEM: -u / -u-n or -u-h
MASC: -i / -i-n or -i-h
NAN: -ar / -a-n or -a-h
NIN: -aš / -a-n or -a-h
This system is older and thus probably still manifests in the pronouns, especially for the neuter genders. But then Vrkhazhian or its ancestor developed a case system based on a tripartite alignment:
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INTR: -m(V)
AGT: -n(V)
PAT: -š(V)
GEN: -ḫ(V)
The system quickly devolved into a split between animate nouns taking nominative-accusative alignment (-m and -š) and inanimate nouns taking ergative-absolutive alignment (-n and -š).
For the common genders it was simply a matter of affixing the cases without any additional modifications, but for the neuter genders, it required reanalyzing the noun class markers as simply -a and so the animacy distinction exists only by what nouns possess what cases/alignment.
As for pronouns, this didn't happen or wasn't necessary as inanimates are represented/emphasized solely with demonstrative pronouns while animates use the extant 3rd and 2nd pronouns. Thus the noun class markers in pronouns should be -u, -i, and -ar. Although that does leave the issue of how to denote if the doer of the action is an inanimate noun such as "the pillar fell on the mouse". Perhaps then, at least for oblique person markers the -aš morpheme also exists.
With all that I don't know what to do about the second and third persons. I don't know if the second persons should have unique oblique morphemes just like the third persons do or if they should have derived oblique stems like the first persons do.
On top of that I want to/have to make the pronouns look emphatic enough and not just be "suffixes but free", I want them to look distinct from the verbal agreement/possessive suffixes which are supposed to be noticeably phonetically reduced in form as befits their role as affixes.
At the same time, they should interact with the nominal class-case system, although the pronouns and noun classes are older, so they need not behave like normal nouns or maybe it explains why the pronouns have oblique forms.
I also have misgivings over the possibility of having the second person having forms like
ā-m-um/
ā-m-im/
ā-m-un-am/
ā-m-in-am and
māy-uš/
māy-iš/
māy-un-aš/
māy-in-aš.
Anyone got ideas I possibly haven't thought of?
