Detail #145: Splitting Nouns into Two Word Classes

I have previously mused a bit about splitting adjectives into two separate, new word classes. In part, this is me being contrarian - conlangers seem to like merging word classes, so why not go the other way.

So, let's get on it! In some way, it seems nouns, verbs and adjectives all semantically are somewhat distinct groups, so it would make sense to try and find a semantic distinction within nouns that we use for leverage in splitting the nouns in half. One very obvious distinction we could use is humans vs. non-humans or animates vs. inanimates. We'll see later that the term 'human' (or even 'animate') is misleading.

Humans (or animates) lack definiteness marking, but have a case system. Humans can be arguments of verbs.

Nonhumans (or inanimates) lack case marking, but do have definiteness marking. When definite, there's also a number distinction. They are not "arguments" of verbs. Nonhumans have a negative form.

In some sense, the nonhuman noun is somewhere inbetween adverb and noun; its relation to the verb is less clear-cut. Nonhumans often, however, combine with various adverbials to express existential things or statements about the thing

	perper	jin
(there is)	rain	around

it is raining, there is rain around

kuso	ha
water(-level)	low

the water is low (in the lake or well or whathaveyou)

tama	-de	bisi
house	DEF.PLUR	cold(ly)

the house is cold
kendi-ly

	menta	-k
rabbit	plenti

rabbits plentily - there are lots of rabbits kendinol - no rabbits!

Humans, when topics or subjects always trigger some congruence somewhere:

ergar ki jin 'soldier is around' (a/the soldier is around here somewhere)

fargan kei migi 'women are weird'

ergan kei menta 'the soldiers are many'

ba ergan kei - there are no soldiers

-p marks reduced transitivity:

'ergar tar-ki-p' - a|the soldier fights 

ergan tar-kei-p - 'soldiers fight' 

mobran tar-kei-p - 'a barbarian fights' 

ergan tar-kei-da mobrat - 'soldiers fight barbarians'

ergar tar-kei-di mobrav - 'soldiers fight a barbarian' 

ergar tar-kei-p vidgale - a soldier fights for the king

mobran suar-kei-di ba vidgat - barbarians have no kings 

In a sentence where both kinds appear, a transitive verb is usually marked for reduced transitivity:

ergar tar-ki-p kendi - soldier fights rabbit

ergar tar-di-p kendi - a rabbit fights a soldier

Verbs that we would perceive as transitive, but that normally take a nounoid object are intransitive:

lengu sea-ki kendi nagat - lengu eats rabbit (for) lunch

sea-p kendiol - there is no rabbit to eat

Anipi sea-ki kendiol - Anipi doesn't eat rabbit 

A cannibal, who eats a human, would get a marker of increased transitivity:

rauduxun sea-kei-le Dehrav - cannibals ate Dehra

Since non-humans take no case marking nor adpositions, their function often has to be figured out from the context:

ergar tar-ki-di vidgav tasdak (the soldier fights the hostile king)

ergar tar-ki-di vidgav tasdak gurba (the soldier fights the hostile king sword(ily?))

Syntactic location often gives parsing hints: non-humans often are close to human constituents that control them. There is one particle that is used with non-humans, that only serves to break such 'control'. This particle can go on either side of the word, and obviously breaks control in that direction. The case of the human that controls the non-human may actually tell us more about the role of the non-human than about the role of the human:

bliga sim-ki-di jungav piri - thief stole wizard.acc wand

junga ŋumi ra-diska-ki -di bligav - the wizard punished the thief with his (great) magic, the wizard punished the thief greatly with his magic (ra is a prefix that marks 'greatness', either of the verb or of a prominent nounoid)

The culture is very focused on humans (or at least animate things) and their affairs. Non-human (or inanimate) participants are not considered central to the events in the same way that humans are, and therefore are relegated to a separate function entirely grammatically speaking. A lot of the inanimate nounoids are derived from verbs, and the language has a rich verbal vocabulary for doing things by various means or for events that can happen. Body parts, the moon, the sun and the stars are also 'nouns' proper, whereas almost all natural phenomena and formations are relegated to being nounoids.

Ways of turning these nounoids into real nouns do exist (which makes the human<>nonhuman terminology somewhat misleading), but such constructions sound stilted to most speakers. Certain verbal nouns are in common use, but most verbs rather turn to verbal nounoids.

Nounoids generally don't take adjectives (although they can be described by adverbs); their qualities are rather implied by the verb used - the language has a number of verbal affixes that give implications as to various attributes of the most prominent nounoid. (Generally one that is either controlled by the subject or the object or one that is just left of the verb.)

This idea isn't perfectly worked out, but it's a start. I throw the idea out there mainly so that someone else would get some more impressive ideas as to how to split some common word class into two, rather than just to merge them. Maybe redraw the line in some other way, so half of the adjectives and half of the nouns form a new third class? Or maybe even half of the nouns and half of the verbs?