Ćwarmin: Demonstrative Pronouns and a Suffix

Ćwarmin demonstrative pronouns are among the few words to have case congruence on them. The situation is even more complicated, since the congruence operates slightly differently depending on whether the noun is animate or inanimate - with inanimates, the demonstrative only marks for case. Definiteness and number are omitted. For animates, the demonstrative usually is either marked with the definite or the specific case marker, and number is also marked (although the paucal number may be substituted by the plural).

arna / ərnə = this
olba / elbə = that

Some morphological abbreviations do happen, however:

arna → artu / artak (definite/specific singular nominative)
arna → araś/arok (plural definite/specific)

More generally, the -na or -ba syllable is generally dropped, and if the suffix has more than one syllable, the first vowel is reduced.

Ćwarmin genitives cannot stand as independent noun phrases. However, with the suffix -(a|e)rn(a|e) or -(o|e)lb(a|ə) a genitive is turned into an independent ~noun. The genitive suffix is also slightly reduced:

-itite+ erne → -itern-

Unlike the full pronouns, the n is not lost when further inflecting this noun for case. Some syllable reduction does happen with regards to the first syllable of bisyllabic case suffixes, however. Although these originate with a demonstrative pronoun, all three definitenesses can be marked on this, correlating to meanings like

a so-and-so of so-and-so's
this particular so-and-so of so-and-so's
the so-and-so of so-and-so's