Adjectives as Nouns in Ćwarmin

Ćwarmin's equivalent to 'the X one' (where X is an adjective) has a little split - half the time, it's as easy as inflecting an adjective for a case and definiteness; the rest of the time, it's less easy. 

Ćwarmin only permits adjectives to stand independently as nouns in the definite and specific forms; an indefinite NP requires a nominal head. For the definite and specific forms, just take an adjective and add the def/spec case marker on it. For indefinite adjectives, there must be a noun that is a dummy head of the NP.

There are several nominal heads that can be used for this, and here the patterns that determine their usage is described.

The main words used for this purpose are

kalć - stick, branch, plant
mirgə - board, cloth, skin, cover
ogmo - stone
taxkar, taxŋar - assembly of parts, construction, something that is built out of smaller parts
voram - belly, torso (of persons)
garnun - body part
səkve - land animal
kic - fish or sea animal
loma - bird or bat
verći - account, words, story, sum, plan
mokmo - action, story, outcome, result
yulzər - assembly of people, bunch, gang, congregation
yulzvonar - horse-mounted assembly of people
semtə - flock of wild, non-carnivorous animals
roŋ - flock of wild, carnivorous animals
kiŋre - flock of tame animals, fortune, boon

There is also a pair of very vague words, erkar, erter  (lit. one-who, one-what) which can be used for almost anything. However, many of the words above are extended by some form of metaphor, so kalć, for instance, covers nearly any tool or implement, ogmo likewise covers many tools and implements, but also building material (even wood!), kic covers anything spotted moving in water (including boats!), loma covers anything in the sky, and yulzvonar covers any group of people ready to fight.

With case forms that lack definiteness, leaving these out is basically syntactically well-formed, but for most Ćwarmin speakers, if the nominalized adjective is semantically indefinite, it requires a noun, if it's specific or definite, it does not. Thus, definiteness marking with independent adjectives is obtained by absence of a dummy noun, which might be typologically unusual.