Suwáá/Unknown: Difference between revisions

Suwáá/Unknown (view source)

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 ==Nouns==
-{{PAGENAME}} nouns decline in definiteness, three numbers (singular, dual and plural), and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, oblique). Unusually for a modern Semitic language, case plays a very important and productive role. There is no counterpart to the construct state or possessed forms of other Semitic languages; however, the possessor always follows the head unless the possessor is a pronoun. This state of affairs presumably came about due to re-analysis of the elements of the original genitive construction, which were strictly 'construct-locked', as "free" declined forms to which clitics could be added.
+{{PAGENAME}} nouns decline in definiteness, three numbers (singular, dual and plural), and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, oblique). Unusually for a modern Semitic language, case plays a very important and productive role. There is no counterpart to the construct state or possessed forms of other Semitic languages; however, the possessor always follows the head unless the possessor is a pronoun. This state of affairs presumably came about because absolute and construct forms merged very early in the language's history.
 The accusative is identical to the genitive for animate nouns, and identical to the nominative for inanimate nouns.