Hantza/Nouns

Pluralisation

Nouns are not declined for case, that is, they are not marked to indicate whether they are the subject or object of a verb. Many nouns are not marked for the plural either; only grammatically animate nouns are pluralised in Hantza.

Examples grammatically inanimate nouns are:

• wara - "sand"
• tzan - "egg" or "eggs"
• domo - "flower" or "flowers"

Grammatically animate nouns are marked as plural by the suffix -it. This elides any final vowel, nouns ending in a glottal stop replace it with -kat and nouns ending in -t change this to the affricate -tz.

• tzaka and tzakit - "man, person" and "men, people"
• sing and singit - "star" and "stars"
• mazzà and mazzakat - "fish" (sg) and "fish" (pl)
• ohat and ohatz - "my son" and "my sons"

Possession

Nouns that are not possessed are unmarked while possessed nouns are marked by a prefix for one of the grammatical persons listed below. The first prefix is used preconsonantly, the second prevocalically.

• First person singular: o-, w-
• First person plural: as-, azz-
• Second person singular: ku-, kw-
• Second person plural: ra-, r-
• Third person animate singular: tzi-, tz-
• Third person animate plural: ang-, ang-
• Third person inanimate: po-, pw-
• Obviative: ma-, m-
• Indefinite: bi-, biy-

Hantza has an alienable-inalienable possession distinction. Indeed, some nouns, most commonly body parts, family members and homes. The indefinite prefix is used if there is no specific possessor.

This word for "father" and "mother" (-ad and -bo) are animate and inalienable and are used as examples in the tables below:

	-ad "father"		-bo "mother"
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1SG	wad	wadit	obo	obit
1PL	azzad	azzadit	asbo	asbit
2SG	kwad	kwadit	kubo	kubit
2PL	rad	radit	rabo	rabit
3SG.AN	tzad	tzadit	tzibo	tzibit
3PL.AN	angad	angadit	angbo	angbit
3.IN	pwad	pwadit	pobo	pobit
OBV	mad	madit	mabo	mabit
INDEF	biyad	biyadit	bibo	bibit

In addition to this, there is an "integral possession" suffix, -ar, used together with the possession prefix, which indicates that the possessed noun is part of its possessor. This is obvious in the examples of ofad "my meat" (food - alienable) and ofadar "my flesh" (body part - inalienable). However, such cases are rare.

There are two distinct ways to stress ownership or possession. The first involves adding the prefix -sa- directly to the root noun:

Osahat!
/oˌsaˈhat/
[ɔ.ˌsɐ.ˈħ̝ät]
o-	-sa-	-hat
1SG	STR	boy
My own son!

The nuance here is "my son" as opposed to any other person's son.

The second way to stress possession is to use the personal pronoun in a genitival construction:

Ohat pi wal?
/oˈhat pi ↗wal/
[ɔ.ˈħ̝äl pɪ ↗wäl]
o-	-hat	pi	wal
1SG	boy	from	1SG
My son?

This is also used in similar expressions: "it is mine".

Possessed nouns cannot be used in conjunction with the definite article.

Personal

Due to the polypersonal agreement present on verbs, bare personal pronouns are rarely used in Hantza. When they are used they are referred to as "emphatic pronouns". Emphatic pronouns are necessarily of definite reference. They are formed by affixing the possession prefixes to the morpheme -al for first and second person and -kò for all other. This is analogous to the English "myself" et cetera.

• First person singular: wal
• First person plural: azzal
• Second person singular: kwal
• Second person plural: ral
• Third person animate singular: tzikò
• Third person animate plural: angkò
• Third person inanimate: pokò
• Obviative: makò

Interrogatives

• Tam? "Who?" - used for humans
• Bibo tam? "Whose mother?" - /bibo ↗tam/
• Bibo tam? "Whose mother?" - /bi↗bo tam/
• Bizza tam? "Whose table?" - /bidza ↗tam/
• Bizza tam? "Whose table?" - /↗bidza tam/
• "What?"
• "Which?"

Negatives

Nothing, no one/nobody, no one's/nobody's

Indefinites

Something, someone/somebody, someone's/somebody's

Attributives

Attributive adjectives are essentially nouns used in apposition and, though they normally proceed the noun they qualify, there is no fixed order as context and semantics can usually be relied on.

Infixes are sometimes used to derive adjective-like nouns from noun-like nouns, e.g. "sandy" from "sand".

Numerals

Cardinal, ordinal, adverbial, multiplier, distributive, collective, fractional