NOMINAL INFLECTION

1. Number

2. Noun class

3. Case

1. NUMBER

The morphological category that expresses contrast involving countable quantities

Distinction between the singular (one) and the plural (more than one)

In others languages

In Nancowry (spoken in India’s Nicobarese Island ) : number is not market on nouns at all

example: sa’k no’t ’in ci’ej

”We spared the pig(s)

In Inuktitut: there are 3-way contrast involving singular, dual( 2 and only 2), plural ( more than two ):

Ex: iglu ’a house’

igluk ’two houses’

iglut ’three or more house’

2. NOUN CLASS

Some languages divide nouns into classes based on shared semantic and/or phonological

Gender Classification:

- In French , Italian, and Spanish : nouns

are either masculine or feminine.

In German, there are 3 subclasses: masculine, feminine, and neuter

-Some languages have extremely elaborate system of classification,- For instance:Noun classification in Swati

Prefix Example English Description

um(u) Um-fana boy persons

li Li-dvolo knee Body parts, fruit

S(i) Si-tja plate instrusments

Bu Bu-bi evil Abstract properties

Pha Pha-ndle outside location

Gender Ending

The form of the determiner varies depending on the class of noun

-Spanish use the definite ’el’ for

masculine nouns, ’la’ for for feminine

ones.

-French use ‘le’ for the masculine subclass, ‘la’ for the feminine subclass

Example:Russian gender ending

Noun English Ending Class

Dom

ulica

House

street

Q

-a

masculine

feminine

In English: there are no gender market at all noun

Nonetheless , the different pronouns( masculine he, feminine she , neuter it) that agree with them tell us that nouns English are divide into 3 gender

3. CASE: a category that encodes information about the syntactic role( subject, direct object, and so on) of a noun.

In many languages, the distinction are marked by inflectional affixes

- Case Form

nominative ev

Accusative ev-I

Dative ev-v

Genitive ev-in

Locative ev-de

Ablative ev-den

Turkish Case:

Number, gender, and case contrasts are combined into one ending.

Russian nominal paradigm:

Some languagues make use of case to encode grammatical contrast:

- In Australian languages Yidin: the case making pattern group together:-

• The subject• Called:the

ergativeIntransitive

verb

• The director object

• Called: the Absolutive

Transitive verb

a)The man is cutting the tree.

subject

Verb phrase

Noun phraseDjugitree

VerbGundal

Is cutting

Noun phrase

Wagudja-nguMan

b) The man is cutting

Subject

Noun phrase

Wagudja (man)

Verb phrase Gundal(Is cutting)

Verbal inflection (advanced)