Nouns in Vrkhazhian

Vrkhazhian nouns are called ǧimū (singular ǧimu). They are declined for case, gender, and number. Specifically there are three cases (nominative, accusative, instrumental, and locative) and two numbers (singular and plural). Additionally, Vrkhazhian has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. These genders are not strictly based on sex and the gender of non-human nouns is somewhat unpredictable.

Noun inflection

Imperial Vrkhazhian nouns are declined for all five cases. The nominative case indicates the subject or agent of the verb while the accusative case indicates the object or patient of the verb. The instrumental case indicates the instrument or tool used to perform an action as well as the theme of a ditransitive verb. The locative case indicates that the noun is a location or a possessor of another noun. Lastly, the vocative case indicates that the noun is being directly addressed.

sarbim (raven) Singular Plural Nominative sarb-i sarb-ī Accusative sarb-it sarb-īt Instrumental sarb-is sarb-īs Locative sarb-ik sarb-īk Vocative sarb-i sarb-ī

ḫuzum (horse) Singular Plural Nominative ḫuz-u ḫuz-ū Accusative ḫuz-ut ḫuz-ūt Instrumental ḫuz-us ḫuz-ūs Locative ḫuz-uk ḫuz-ūk Vocative ḫuz-u ḫuz-ū

Spoken Vrkhazhian nouns are declined in only two cases: the nominative and the oblique, where the oblique case indicates the object, or patient, of a transitive verb. It also indicates the possessor of a genitive construction as well as the object of a postposition. However, nouns are also distinguished between definite and indefinite, where definiteness indicates that the noun is a specific or previously-mentioned thing.

sarbi (raven) Singular Plural Indefinite Nominative sarb-i sarb-ī Indefinite Oblique sarb-a sarb-ā Definite Nominative sarb-ili sarb-īli Definite Oblique sarb-ali sarb-āli

ḫuzu (horse) Singular Plural Indefinite Nominative ḫuz-u ḫuz-ū Indefinite Oblique ḫuz-a ḫuz-ā Definite Nominative ḫuz-uli ḫuz-ūli Definite Oblique ḫuz-ali ḫuz-āli

Noun states

Nouns are also considered to be placed into what are called "states". There are two states: the governed state, or status rectus, and the construct state, or status constructus. The construct state is used in genitive constructions to mark the head noun (possessed noun), while the oblique case is used to mark the dependent (modifying) noun. The construct state is also used to mark the predicate of a nominal sentence. Nouns that that are not placed in the construct state are considered to be in the governed state, which is the default state of all nouns.

When a noun is placed in the construct state, it is stripped of its gender-case ending.

sarbim (raven) Singular Plural Construct State sarab sarb-ē

ḫuzum (horse) Singular Plural Construct State ḫuz ḫuz-ē

Noun derivation

Vrkhazhian nouns are mostly derived from verbs and there are numerous ways to derive nouns from them: