forumadmin, Administrators
2,041
edits
Skerre: Difference between revisions
→Nouns
(→Nouns) |
|||
| Line 93: | Line 93: | ||
===Nouns=== | ===Nouns=== | ||
Skerre has no grammatical gender and, in fact, nouns have no obligatory inflection. They can be simple, compound, or derived, with a fair number falling in the last category. | Skerre has no grammatical gender and, in fact, nouns have no obligatory inflection. They can be simple, compound, or derived, with a fair number falling in the last category. | ||
==== Number ==== | |||
Skerre nouns are not obligatorily marked for number, yet there are two number(-like) categories present: the distributive and collective. The distributive is marked with partical reduplication: the reduplicant consists of the base’s initial syllable with a long vowel, e.g. ''kina'' ‘bird’ – ''kiikina'' ‘various birds’. The distributive signals a number of individuated entities distributed over space, time, or types. The collective is marked with the prefix ''tin''-, as in ''tinkina'' ‘flock of birds’. The collective signals that the group is to be considered as a whole. | |||
==== Prenominals ==== | |||
Syntactic relationships between nouns and other parts of sentences are signaled by function words before the noun, which have been called prenominals. These function words encode both status (proper or common) and syntactic function (including what adpositions normally encode). The forms are: | |||
==Syntax== | ==Syntax== | ||
===Constituent order=== | ===Constituent order=== | ||