Barxáw: The Noun Phrase

Barxáw noun phrases and prepositional phrases have certain complications that may be of interest.

In general, and this goes for all types of determiners and attributes, 'less' heavy attributes go to the left of their heads, heavy attributes to the right. Heavy attributes include subclauses and prepositional attributes -

túλxà ðo q^hmaní - official of other (ambassador)

túλxà ðo Íst^haŋ - ambassador from Ístaŋ

 Íst^haŋ túλxà - an Ístaŋian officer 

 sartè dásqu - warm drink (generally heated berry juices)

t^hárg sartè dásqu - spicy warm juice (generally herbs rather than what English denotes by spices)

 sartè prùk - warm blood (a term for warm fruit or berry juices flavored with meat broth)

bɛ̀n díp - running water (here, a verb works adjectively; the actual verb is not 'run', but rather 'flow', but the meaning is closer to the English phrase 'running water')

The order of adjectives tends to be pragmatically determined - adjectives that 'restrict' the type of noun, rather than describe it, are closer to the noun. Adjectives that describe desired qualities rather than necessary qualities are further from it, etc.

There are two kinds of adpositions - prepositions proper and Wackernagelpositions. Wackernagelpositions occur as the second word in the phrase. 2ndpositions could be a reasonable name as well. Thus:

ðetrú kaw - along the side

q^hmaní kaw ðetrú - along the other side

Counter words appear just before the noun, unless a 2ndposition gets in the way.

sún um ðìnt - (made) of (counter: bushel) hay; sún is a proper preposition

evé sit múlɛ́ - (counter: congregation) by permission from court; sit is a 2ndposition.

Numerals and other quantifiers go just before the counter. Most nouns require counters with prepositions, but a fair share of exceptions exist.
Complex numbers (i.e. having more than two parts) go to the right of the noun. Simple large numbers, such as 'thousand' or 'hundred' can also be moved to the right to emphasize the number or make it mean something like 'untold hundred(s)/thousand(s)'.

The 2ndpositions revert to normal prepositions in embedded adpositional phrases -

malí um sún ðìnt - house (made) of (bushel) hay

ðəlín sit evé múlɛ - license (≃ letter) by permission of court

Some of the wilder things - nouns or adjectives extracted from the phrase, etc, also revert 2ndpositions to prepositions. However, those will be reviewed in a separate post.