ENG - Dagomnian adjectives are written before their prescribed nouns, and a single root can be declined into as many as twelve adjectives, one verb, and two nouns. Not all the forms of an adjective are used.
DAG - Dagomni epicimnei prin tismi priscribadi nomnis sont, et semni prilso in pelotri san duodim epicimnis, oino hrimu, ce duo nomnis minadi sumnat. Neola morpe epicimni crisada sont.
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | -i | -a |
| Eminentivei.e. "very / really" | -isti | -ista |
| Superlativei.e. "most / -est" | -ezmi | -ezma |
| Comparativei.e. "more / -er" | -imi | -ima |
| Extremitivei.e. "so / as" | -otri | -otra |
| Elativei.e. "too / overly" | -uebi | -ueba |
When the adjective is directly describing a noun, such as "The tall man", it is placed before the noun: Psili viro. However, when the adjective is in the predicate, like in "The man is tall", the adjective is always placed directly before the verb, which also places it after its prescribed noun; in Dagomnian, the same sentence would literally translate as "Man tall is", Viro psili is, as standard Dagomnian word order is Subject-Object-Verb.
The base form of the adjective (the one you would search up in a dictionary) is the Masculine Standard declension, -i; for example, the Dagomnian root meaning "help" is celb-, and its base adjective form would be celbi, translating as "helpful/assistive".
The adjective must assume the gender for the noun it's describing: prugi losto (a/the useful spear) [masculine declension], and pruga cjen (a/the useful person) [feminine declension].
This declension contains no recorded exceptions.
The eminentive degree would translate to English as "very" or "really", as in celbisti "very helpful".
This declension contains no recorded exceptions.
The English word and suffix, "most" and "-est", indicate the superlative adjectival degree. Such examples in Dagomnian would include celbezmi "most helpful", suahezmi "sweetest", and many many more.
This declension contains two major exceptions:
As the name suggests, the comparative degree compares one noun to another, translating as "more" or "-er".
When a noun is being compared to another, the "compared" noun (smodio in Dagomnian) is placed directly after the "comparer" noun (smodadro) and takes on the ablative declension; for example: "My brother is taller than you" would be Hmi breter ted psilimi is.
This declension conatins no recorded exceptions.
The extremitive declension is mostly found on predicative (aka "indirect") adjectives; only in very informal speech would it ever be used on attributive (aka "direct") adjectives.
This declension has two main translations: "so" and "as". If there is no compared noun involved, it translates as "so", such as in Quonudei suahotri sont (The puppies are so cute); if there is a compared noun involved, much like the Comparative declension, the compared noun utilizes the preposition san (as / like / similar to) and is placed after the comparer noun, also placing it before the declined adjective. Such an example would be Goupa san stenod matrai cjuvotra is "The basement is as safe as a mother's breast*".
* - "As safe as a mother's breast" is a Dagomnian idiom that states guaranteed security and safety.
This declension has only one exception for one single word: muljoi (false / counterfeit), as the declension mutates into -uotri, declining the word to muljuotri/a.
The elative degree indicates an amount of overabundance, translating as "too", "overly", and even "beyond", such as Lumptuebi ogno hmi patri (My father's overly expensive car).
There are three major irregulars:
| Copular Verbi.e. "to get/become []" | -escare |
| Nominalized Adjectivei.e. "the [] one" | -io |
| Abstract Nouni.e. "[]-ness / []-like state" | -eja |
| Partialityi.e. "almost / partially / barely" | pau- |
The verb "to become" in Dagomnian is buhare, but to become [noun] and to become [adjective] are approached differently. Buhare is used on nouns, while the verb suffix, -escare, is used for adjectives [i.e. aigri "sick" -> aigrescare "to get/become sick"].
The nominalized form of an adjective translates as "the [] one" or "a/n [] being", and the suffix, -io, works as such [i.e. aigri -> aigrio "the sick one / a sick being"].
The abstract noun form of an adjective translates as "[]-ness" or "the state of []" [i.e. aigri -> aigreja "sickness"].
The adjectival prefix, -pau, indicates partiality or incompletion of an adjective [i.e. credmi "trustworthy" -> paucredmi "semi-trustworthy"]. This form also changes form depending on the onset of the adjective: