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=====Gender===== | =====Gender===== | ||
Words in 17aug can belong to either a masculine, a feminine or a neuter gender. This is grammatically determined and does not always correspond to natural gender. For example, ''siit'' 'hope' is masculine, ''vilya'' 'cloud' is feminine, and ''aegast'' 'needle' is neuter. | Words in 17aug can belong to either a masculine {{sc|(m)}}, a feminine {{sc|(f)}} or a neuter {{sc|(n)}} gender. This is grammatically determined and does not always correspond to natural gender. For example, ''siit'' 'hope' is masculine, ''vilya'' 'cloud' is feminine, and ''aegast'' 'needle' is neuter. Generally, it can be said that nouns that end in a stop often are masculine, while nouns with final vowel sounds often are feminine. While there are some exceptions, this holds true in more than 70% of the cases. Determining if a noun is neuter is much more difficult as they may appear similar to both feminine and masculine nouns. The only sure way of knowing if a word is neuter is by memorising it. | ||
=====Number===== | |||
Nouns can be inflected for three numbers: singular ({{sc|s}}), dual ({{sc|dual}}), and plural ({{sc|pl}}). The singular is the unmarked form. The dual is used only for things that naturally form pairs such as eyes, ears, legs and such. It is not used for describing two unpaired things. The plural covers the rest of all cases. Some nouns have no plural or dual form, e.g. ''pää'' 'snow' which only exists in the singular form. | |||
vilya vilyaana vilyah | |||
vilya vilya-ana vilyaala | |||
siit siidene siidäh | |||
no? -sigh- | |||
====Pronouns==== | ====Pronouns==== | ||