A few handfuls of Ŋʒädär nouns have exceptional morphological patterns going for them. There are three main classes of such patterns:
- -st'i-/-st'ı- added for plural and obviative forms.
- -rk'e-/-rk'o- added for all oblique cases and all plural and obviative forms.
- -t'o-/-t'e- added for plural oblique forms and obviative oblique forms
These three morphemes are all nominalizers; -st'(i/ı)- most often signifies '-ness, -ity'; thus for instance k'oru (dry) → k'orust'ı (dryness), sar (weak) → sarst'i (weakness), iqe (man) → iqest'i (manliness) but also occasionally other meanings: ibik (sleep) → ibix(s)t'i (bed), rügvä (house) → rügvästi (inhabitant). However, it also appears in the plural and obviative forms of nouns such as mother (yajo), king (kamma), edible mushrooms (sändö), male offspring (gumu), female offspring (t'äne).
The -rk'(e|o)- suffix is used both for verbal nouns and for 'concrete examples' of an adjective, i.e. 'a red thing', or 'a kindness' (this use of -ness in English is somewhat different from the meaning of -ness in the previous paragraph). Many tools follow this pattern, but so do certain vessels, i.e. reindeer or dog sleds.
The -t'(o|e)- suffix often serves the role of turning a verb into an instance of the verb, i.e. q'olku = die, q'olxt'o = a death. However, this also occurs with some animal names, i.e. leading dog (hark) having the plural/obviative oblique stem harxt'o-, reindeer (iseti) having the plural/obviative oblique stem ist'e-).
More nouns of these type will find their way into the dictionary.
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