Nouns
Common and proper nouns are open classes; the pronouns are closed. Nouns are classified according to four criteria. Wordlists on this page show examples of each type.
Class
Common
Common nouns can refer to abstract or concrete items.
Proper
Proper nouns begin with a capital letter in the transliteration. These are names that refer to individual people, places or things.
Pronoun
Pronouns are used to refer to a known noun or noun phrase. Full information can be found in the section on deixis.
Composition
Stem
Stem nouns are those that are neither compounded nor derived.
Compound
The first part of a compound noun must be a noun, and the subsequent parts specify the meaning of that noun. These parts can be nouns or verbs. The whole noun is usually written without spaces. The syllabification and stress of nonce words are determined on a stem-by-stem basis. However, a compound in common use will start being treated whole.
- “mountain lake”
- “bluebird”
Derived
These nouns are derived from stem or compound nouns, or from other parts of speech, by means of suffixes.
- “anger”
- “stomach”
- “police officer”
- “book”
Animacy
This determines which derivational suffixes can be applied, and which pronouns are used as reference.
Animate
These refer to people and other multicellular organisms capable of independent movement.
Inanimate
These refer to things such as natural phenomena, plants, fungi and unicellular life.
Abstract
This category encompasses concepts, ideas and other intangibles. They are referred to by inanimate pronouns.
Count
Discrete
Discrete nouns refer to distinct items, such as individual objects, people or animals.
Mass
Mass nouns refer to an undifferentiated aggregation. These are often substances, groups of people, plants, or unpleasant insects. These cannot take numbers, except for a postpended -xita した one to denote the smallest individual piece of that aggregate.