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Most Skyrdagor nouns only inflect for two cases (absolutive and ergative), with no number marking on the nouns themselves; generic quantifiers or numbers with classifiers are used instead. Note, though, that some irregular nouns have a third, fossilized, oblique form (used with most adpositions), and there are some apparent singular/plural pairs, which are however usually analyzed as distinct lemmas.<br/>Each noun is defined as naturally animate or inanimate, something that has a notable effect on the whole grammar – inanimate nouns do not exist in the ergative case. | Most Skyrdagor nouns only inflect for two cases (absolutive and ergative), with no number marking on the nouns themselves; generic quantifiers or numbers with classifiers are used instead. Note, though, that some irregular nouns have a third, fossilized, oblique form (used with most adpositions), and there are some apparent singular/plural pairs, which are however usually analyzed as distinct lemmas.<br/>Each noun is defined as naturally animate or inanimate, something that has a notable effect on the whole grammar – inanimate nouns do not exist in the ergative case. | ||
Some Skyrdagor nouns feature obligatory possession, for example the stem ''bajn-'' (mother) cannot occur without a possessive suffix, i.e. ''bajnym'' "my mother", ''bajnth'' "your (<small>M</small>) mother". Most are common stems, such as ''fon-'' (father), ''szyks-'' (leg), ''ljav-'' (head) | Some Skyrdagor nouns feature obligatory possession, for example the stem ''bajn-'' (mother) cannot occur without a possessive suffix, i.e. ''bajnym'' "my mother", ''bajnth'' "your (<small>M</small>) mother". Most are common stems, such as ''fon-'' (father), ''szyks-'' (leg), ''ljav-'' (head). | ||
The only inflection in contemporary Skyrdagor – the ergative, as the absolutive is unmarked – is agglutinative, but the last consonant and, sometimes, the last vowel, determines the shape of the suffix: | The only inflection in contemporary Skyrdagor – the ergative, as the absolutive is unmarked – is agglutinative, but the last consonant and, sometimes, the last vowel, determines the shape of the suffix: |
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