Nouns

Cases

Four cases still exist in Early Modern Holic: absolutive (A), ergative (E), modive (M) and genitive (G), though the modive is falling out of use with most nouns. Because of great post-stress losses in the Old Holic period, however many nouns are invariant in form, though these cases are still marked clearly on adjectives.

• The absolutive case is used for the subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitives, among other functions (such as the vocative, with postpostition mu, O.
• The ergative case is used for the subject of transitives, and also for the perceiver for verbs of perception.
• The modive case is used to express in what manner something is done; the English equivalent is frequently an adverb.
• The genitive case not only shows possession, but is the case almost all postpositions take. Historically the locative merged with it, and consequently there are certain fixed expressions of place or time, such as pe, at night.

Gender

There are three grammatical genders, conveniently called feminine, neuter and masculine, although the latter two would both be considered sorts of ‘masculine’ by native grammarians. Even if the nouns do not decline the adjectives that modify them must be in the correct gender. However, the system is beginning to break down in favour of a semantically determined gender system. Invariant nouns are particularly prone to changing gender, and neuters that refer to persons are beginning to shift to the appropriate natural gender.

Compounding

Because almost all nouns were stressed on the first syllable, one might expect nearly all nouns to be monosyllabic after the Middle Holic poststress reductions. However, there was something of a fashion for compounding during the time this occurred, and the expected problems of mass homophony were avoided by compunding. Probably most nouns are in fact etymologically two-part compounds, for which reason disyllabic nouns are very common.

Principle Parts and Declensions

The declension pattern of nouns can be derived from their gender and their absolutive singular, ergative singular and plural. I therefore list nouns in the format ‘ASg (gender, ESg, Pl)’, e.g. pew (f, pev, pew), night. An invariant noun can be shown with just the gender in parentheses. Neuter nouns are invariable in the singular and so the ESg can be omitted.

The following table shows the declensions:

	f1	f2	f3	f4	n1	n2	n3	m1	m2	m3
ASg	-y	-A	-nj	-y	-y	-A	-nj	-nj	-A	-nj
ESg	-v	-w	-v	-w	-y	-A	-nj	-v	-v	-
MSg	-sj	-t	-	-sj	-y	-A	-nj	-	-	-
GSg	-	-	~	-y	-y	-A	-nj	~	~	~
Pl	-	-B	-n	-y	-v	-w	-	-v	-w	-

• The declensions labelled ‘1’ are originally vowel stems, ‘2’ consonant stems, ‘3’ N-stem and ‘4’ Y-stems.
• A and B are consonants which vary by subdeclension. A is not fully predictable from B, nor vice versa.
• ~ indicates that that the preceding vowel, if i or u, is changed to o.

In determining which declension a noun belongs to from its parts, check to see if it fits a declension other than the consonant declension first; if not, it must belong to the consonant declension with appropriate values for A and B.

Only the latter part of a compounded noun declines.

A shorter way of listing the forms of the noun is to give the gender, declension and value of B if declension f2, thus: pew (f2w).

Note that -y endings disappear after i and -w after u.

Plurals

In cases where the plural is not distinct from the singular, either because the noun is invariable or because the two form coincide in the context, it is increasingly the usage to show plurality through reduplication of the (normal plural) form. The sound changes described under Phonology apply, and the stress falls on the second part; in roman transcription one uses a hyphen between the two halves. So tap-táb, possessions. This usage is not obligatory, and some speakers still use the reduplicated form only in the sense of a lot of.