Nouns and Possession
Nouns have no grammatical gender and no declension classes.
Number and definiteness
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
ROOT | singular indefinite |
ROOT-ar | plural |
ROOT-en | definite singular |
ROOT-ar-en | definite plural |
Example:
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
hus | a house / house |
husar | houses |
husen | the house |
husaren | the houses |
Possession
-s marks the possessor. No apostrophe is used.
The full noun morphology order is:
ROOT → NUMBER → DEFINITENESS → POSSESSION
Examples:
manns hus— a man’s housemannens hus— the man’s housemannars hus— men’s housemannarens hus— the men’s houselivs end— life’s end
A possessed noun does not normally receive -en merely because the possessor identifies it. Redundant definiteness is avoided when context already does the work.
Numerals and noun number
enn takes a singular noun. zero and every cardinal number greater than one take a plural noun.
enn hund— one dogzero hundar— zero dogstvaa hundar— two dogs
Collective folk
folk means a people considered as a cultural, national, or social collective.
mannar means multiple individual persons.
folkar therefore means multiple distinct peoples.