How do I create multiple declension paradigms?

[DemoArgenti]

Basically what it says on the tin. I have a conlang Im trying to work on that has grammatical case marking, and I want to spice it up by adding some declensions. But i cant quite figure out how to acheive that in a satisfactory way. I know sound changes are key, but I dont quite know where to start. Any suggestions on how to tackle that issue?

[Salmoneus]

You already asked the same question but about verbs; several of us gave answers (which would apply equally well to nouns), but you ignored us.

Leaving aside issues of motivation (people are less willing to help you when you show no gratitude for having being helped in the past), it's difficult to know what to say differently when you repeat a question without having given any feedback on previous answers. If we don't know what was wrong with our previous answers, how can we know how to adjust our answers this time?

[DemoArgenti]

Im sorry for not responding to the previous thread. I did end up taking the advice you guys gave and came up with a simple start to my verb conjugation system, which was very helpful. On my end, I have taken the advice from that convo, but I also am very new to forum discussion ettiquette, and also just wnt through a stressful move. I forgot a lot from that discussion ngl. Having gone over it, its extremely helpful, and I was familiar with a lot of the basic priniciples, though having them spelled out ao succinctly in one place was useful. My main issue now though is trying to figure out how to even get sound changes that would produce multiple forms. For my first round of sound changes, they only produced a few irregular verbs, while most vlall verbs have very predictable perfective stems. My main question then is how to come up with sound changes that would take one stem and produce multiple endings. Thats something I have been having difficulty trying to implement: the specific sound changes I could use to produce such an effect. Sound change appliers are easy and fairly intuitive for me to use to create sound changes, but coming up with sound changes to achieve a specific goal eludes me.

[Arayaz]

Im sorry for not responding to the previous thread. I did end up taking the advice you guys gave and came up with a simple start to my verb conjugation system, which was very helpful. On my end, I have taken the advice from that convo, but I also am very new to forum discussion ettiquette, and also just wnt through a stressful move. I forgot a lot from that discussion ngl. Having gone over it, its extremely helpful, and I was familiar with a lot of the basic priniciples, though having them spelled out ao succinctly in one place was useful. My main issue now though is trying to figure out how to even get sound changes that would produce multiple forms. For my first round of sound changes, they only produced a few irregular verbs, while most vlall verbs have very predictable perfective stems. My main question then is how to come up with sound changes that would take one stem and produce multiple endings. Thats something I have been having difficulty trying to implement: the specific sound changes I could use to produce such an effect. Sound change appliers are easy and fairly intuitive for me to use to create sound changes, but coming up with sound changes to achieve a specific goal eludes me.

Any environment-sensitive sound change will cause irregularity (or at least alternate forms) in the verb conjugation paradigm.

[DemoArgenti]

Im checking out the Index Diachronica for ideas on that front. I do need to figure out how to like, come up with some on my own tho that are realistic. One thing I worry is that my conditional sound changes dont make any sense.

[Keenir]

Im checking out the Index Diachronica for ideas on that front. I do need to figure out how to like, come up with some on my own tho that are realistic. One thing I worry is that my conditional sound changes dont make any sense.

They need only make sense/sound right, to you. Always remember that, no matter how nonsensical something may seem in a conlang by you or someone else, remember that a natlang has done it weirder.

[Khemehekis]

Just look at Albanian if you want to see how weird a sound change can be.

[Omzinesý]

First I have to say that I'm still struggling with that problem too. It's so hard to make things irregular.

Finnish has an old word viini which means the thing were a bowman holds his arrows.

It inflected
NOMINATIVE viini
GENITIVE viini-n
PARTITIVE viini-tä

Then non-final unstressed i changed to e.
NOMINATIVE viini
GENITIVE viine-n
PARTITIVE viine-tä

The e was lost after the partitive ending.
NOMINATIVE viini
GENITIVE viine-n
PARTITIVE viin-tä

That is how the word is now inflected.

Later Finnish borrowed word viini 'wine' from Swedish. It was inflected analogously with words ending in other consonants but i.
NOMINATIVE viini
GENITIVE viini-n
PARTITIVE viini-ä (The partitive t was lost between unstressed vowels.)

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Another idea is that regular inflectional affixes are reduced. Very frequently used elements are often reduced sporadically.

Finnish has word kaivo 'a well'. It inflects like viini 'wine'.
NOMINATIVE kaivo
GENITIVE kaivo-n
PARTITIVE kaivo-a

Word kaivo-s 'mine' can be derived from it. (Technically they are derived from a common older root but let's ignore it.)

Possible the derivational suffix was -kse in the beginning.

NOMINATIVE kaivokse
GENITIVE kaivokse-n
PARTITIVE kaivokse-ta

The frequent suffix -ske was reduced to -s when not followed by a coda consonant.
NOMINATIVE kaivos
GENITIVE kaivokse-n
PARTITIVE kaivos-ta

Now kaivo and kaivos have very different inflectional paradigms.

[Khemehekis]

Finnish has an old word viini which means the thing were a bowman holds his arrows.

Quiver?

[Omzinesý]

Finnish has an old word viini which means the thing were a bowman holds his arrows.

Quiver?

Yes, so it seems to be.
I just didn't check it the last time.