Hantza/Nouns

Pluralisation

Nouns do not change 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 deletes 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: ho-, hw-
• Fourth person (AKA 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.

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.

Personal pronouns

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.

• First person singular
• First person plural
• Second person singular
• Second person plural
• Third person animate singular
• Third person animate plural
• Third person inanimate
• Fourth person (AKA obviative)

Interrogative pronouns

What, which, who(m), whose

Negative pronouns

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

Indefinite pronouns

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

Attributives

Attributive adjectives are essentially nouns used in apposition and there is no fixed order.

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