Hylian Adjectives

taktEn hilanan

Taktën Hilanan

Adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronous. They give some kind of information about the modified word. Adjectives also follow a regular pattern. All adjectives have the same ending. However, some words have the same ending as adjectives, but are not adjectives. Some common exceptions will be shown later. Adjectives can come before or after the word they modify, but it is more common to see an adjective come after the noun. Adjectives are the only other part of speech other than nouns that change ending when plural. Adjectives must agree in number with the noun or pronoun they modify; singular words take a singular adjective, and plural words take plural adjectives. The two adjective endings are shown below.

Singular Adjectives			Plural Adjectives
=a	-a	All regular singular adjectives have an -a ending. There are some exceptions, but those will be listed later. A singular adjective is used only with a singular noun or singular pronoun.	=an	-an	All regular plural adjectives have an -an ending. There are no exceptions for plural adjectives. A plural adjective is used only with a plural noun or plural pronoun

Adjective	Noun	Noun-Adjective Phrase
alba alba holy	d)gine dégine goddess	d)gine alba dégine alba holy goddess
alban alban holy	d)ginEn déginën goddesses	d)ginEn alban déginën alban holy goddesses
SPECIAL NOTE: The order of nouns and adjectives in Hylian is fairly loose. They can come either before or after the nouns they modify, but afterward is more common.

Exceptions to the Adjective Rule

Words with an -a ending that are not adjectives
d@a	da.ia	of	preposition
dOa	do.ia	from	preposition
kwa	kwa	that, which, who	relative pronoun

Words that are adjectives, but do not have an -a ending
taz	taz	the	defininte article, technically an adjective
raz	raz	a, an	indefininte article, technically an adjective

Demonstrative Adjectives

A demonstrative adjective is a word that specifies what a noun is. In Enlgish, they are equivalent to "this", "that", etc. These words are always followed by a noun, and always describe a noun, e.g. "this book." Here are the most commonly-used demonstrative adjectives in Hylian:

Adjective		Definition	Example
za	za	this	za itsakupande - this encyclopedia
zan	zan	these	zan itsakupandën - these encyclopedias
zata	zata	that	zata itsakupande - that encyclopedia
zatan	zatan	those	zatan itsakupandën - those encyclopedias

Possessive Adjectives

These adjectives show possession of something. In English, words like "my" and "your" can be pronouns or adjective, depending on context. The same is true in Hylian, this section deals with the adjective form of possessives. Any word can be made into a possessive adjective by adding a simple suffix "-'sa" or "-'san", depending on whether or not the word being modified is plural or singular; these are equivalent to English's use of the apostrophe+s. Please note that when adding this suffix, the stress of the original word is preserved, but there is no written accent mark. Here are some examples:

Word		Possessive		Definition
kasuto	Kasuto	kasuto'sa kasuto'san	Kasuto'sa Kasuto'san	Kasuto's
bagu	bagu	bagu'sa bagu'san	bagu'sa bagu'san	my
t@u	ta.iu	t@u'sa t@u'san	ta.iu'sa ta.iu'san	your
nosu	nosu	nosu'sa nosu'san	nosu'sa nosu'san	our

Examples
Singular	Plural
zu t@ras kasuto'sa lErde. Zu ta.iras Kasuto'sa lërde. This is Kasuto's book.	ziu t@ras kasuto'san lerdEn. Ziu ta.iras Kasuto'san lërdën. These are Kasuto's books.
sEru t@ras bagu'sa pi&ntine. Sëru ta.iras bagu'sa piántine. She is my mother.	iru t@ras bagu'san pi&ntinEn. Iru ta.iras bagu'san piántën. They are my parents.
Eru t@ras sEru'sa akime. Ëru ta.iras sëru'sa akime. He is her friend.	iEru t@ras sEru'san akimEn. Iëru ta.iras sëru'san akimën. They are her friends.
IMPORTANT NOTE:*When nouns or pronouns are made into possessives, grammatically they become adjectives and behave like adjectives. Kasuto* is a noun, but Kasuto'sa is an adjective.**

Using Numbers as Adjectives

Numbers are frequently used as adjectives. They are used when telling the quantity of something, or telling how many things there are. Using a number strictly as and adjective, i.e. as in There are three people here, is stricly a matter of changing the ending of the number.

Cardinal Numbers

Cardinal numbers are simple counting numbers, as in one, two, three. In Hylian, the nound forms would be hire, dise, troe. To turn a cardinal number into an adjective, simply change the -e ending to an -a or -an ending, depending on whether or not it's plural. Most of the time, only hire(one) will be used in the singular, and the rest are plural. Please note that in large compound numbers, as in sidëme kose (seventy-four), only the last word in the number changes to an adjective ending, e.g. sidëme kose becomes sidëme kosa.

Cardinal Number	Adjective Form	Example
hire hire	hira hira	bagu tEnshas hira r;pie. Bagu tënshas hira rúpie. I have one rupee.
hEnte hënte	hEntan hëntan	sEru koemes ab hentan pakstEn. Sëru koemes ab hëntan pakstën. She ate six pastries.
DEme onte dëme onte	dEme ontan dëme ontan	siEru tEnSas ab dEme ontan r;piEn. Siëru tënshas ab dëme ontan rúpiën. They have eighteen rupees.

Ordinal Numbers

An ordinal number is used to tell the rank or position of something in a list or group. It is equivalent to English's use of words like first, second, third, fourth, fifth and so on. In Hylian, ordinal numbers are formed by taking the word base (e.g., the word base of hire is hir) and adding -ashe for the noun form or -asha for the adjective form. Here are some examples:

Normal	Base	Noun Form	Adjective Form
hire hire	hir= hir-	hiraSe hirashe	hiraSa hirasha
dEme dëme	dEm= dëm-	dEmaSe dëmashe	dEmaSa dëmasha

Examples
Singular	Plural
zatu t@ras taz kosaSa lErde kwa bagu katabes. Zatu ta.iras taz koshasa lërde kwa bagu katabes. That is the fourth book (that) I wrote.	iEru t@res taz hiraSan hitEn kwa vies ak hirule. Iëru ta.iras taz hirashan hitën kwa vies ak hirule. They are the first people that went to Hyrule.

Predicate Adjectives

A predicate adjective describes the subject of a sentence, linked to the subject with a linking verb (such as "to be" in English). Like simple noun-adjective phrases, the predicate adjective must agree with the subject in number. The subject could be a simple noun, a group of nouns, or a pronoun. Here are examples of simple sentences with predicate adjectives.

Examples
Singular	Plural
zatu t@ras taz kosaSa lErde kwa bagu katabes. Zatu ta.iras taz koshasa lërde kwa bagu katabes. That is the fourth book (that) I wrote.	iEru t@res taz hiraSan hitEn kwa vies ak hirule. Iëru ta.iras taz hirashan hitën kwa vies ak hirule. They are the first people that went to Hyrule.

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