Kala Nouns

Nouns

• Nouns include pronouns, adjectives (nouns of quality), and determiners.

plurality

• A countable noun (or "count noun") can be modified by a number, and can accept the plural. Typical countable nouns represent objects that are clearly individual entities, such as houses, cats, and thoughts. For example:

	root	usage	example
-m	ma	general plural	tsakam houses
-mha	ma + -ha	indefinite abundance	tsakamha many/a lot houses
-mi	ma + -hi	indefinite insufficiency	tsakami few houses
tli-	tatli	collective plural	tlikuma sleuth of bears
-lo	ma	alternative to -m	yamalo mountains

• When modified by a number, general plurals need not be marked. Example:

tsaka ta'o - Two houses.

Affect / Degree

• The diminutive is formed with -hi, and the augmentative with -ha.

These are respectively realized as -ki and -ka when attached to a word that has a final syllable onset is /h/.

Example : ina - food, meal | inahi - snack, morsel | inaha - feast, banquet

Example : tsaka - house, home, dwelling | tsakahi - shack, hut, cabin | tsakaha - palace, mansion

• These are also used to differentiate hue, or shade.

Example : yanahi - light yellow, kuyaha - dark green

• In Kala the concepts of comparative and superlative degree of an adjective are merged into a single form, the elative.

How this form is understood or translated depends upon context and definiteness. In the absence of comparison, the elative conveys the notion of “greatest”, “supreme.”

Example : tahaka - bigger/biggest

tsaka hayo ke nayo tahaka - His house is bigger than mine.

Example : yanaha - more yellow/most yellow

ke mauam tayo yanaha - Your flowers are the most yellow.

gender

• Nouns do not normally indicate their gender. To distinguish the sexes, the suffixes -ta and -na are used:

• uma - horse

umata - a male horse, a stallion

umana - a female horse, a mare

Pronouns

• Kala generally distinguishes four persons, the fourth person indicating abstract and inanimate nouns – both in the singular and plural numbers.

There is also a distinction between inclusive (I/we and you) and exclusive (we but not you) forms of the first person plural.

• na - 1sg
• ta - 2sg
• ha - 3sg
• tla - 4sg

-

• The two irregular pronouns:
  • na'am - 1pl exclusive
  • kam - 3pl

inflectional affixes

• -m - plural
• -nku - reciprocal
• e- - accusative
• -i - reflexive
• -yo - possessive

-

• Example:

eta	nahe	tsaka	hayo	a
acc-2sg	inside	house	3sg-poss	be

Correlative Pronouns

	query	this proximal	that medial	that (over there) distal	some	none	any	every	whichever
adjective	ke...ka which	itla this	uatla that	yetla that (over there)	iha some	ok none	ula any	kua every, all	ote whichever
person	ko...ka who	iko this person	uako that person	yeko that person (over there)	hyako someone	tlok no one	kola anyone	tlokua everyone	teko whoever
thing	ke...ka what	itla this	uatla that	yetla that (over there)	hyano something	nok nothing	nola anything	nokua everything	teno whatever
time	ama...ka when	ima now	uama then	yeme then	hyama sometime	amak never, at no time	tlama anytime	kuama always	tema whenever
place	mo...ka where	hina here	uana there (near you)	yemo there (away from us)	hyamo somewhere	mok nowhere	mola anywhere	mokua everywhere	temo wherever
way	to...ka how	yoto thus			hyato somehow				heto however
amount	uku...ka how much					ok none			teku however much
reason	nye...ka why								tenye why ever

Index

grammar outline | sentences | questions | lexicon | thematic lexicon | writing