Khulls nouns

Khulls nouns inflect using a fusional declension system. Though not as complicated at that of Poswa, the declensions differ more from each other because Khulls uses a "discrete" declension system instead of deriving inflections based on every phoneme in the word, as does Poswa.

Noun declension tables

Primary vowel-stem declensions

Final unstressed short vowels

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
òṭa	table, desk	oṭà	oṭâ	oṭas	oṭal	oṭan	oṭī	oṭō
ḳĭri	happiness, victory	ḳirì	ḳirî	ḳiris	ḳiril	ḳirin	ḳirĕ	ḳiġʷ
nìto	price, penalty	nitò	nitô	nitos	nitol	niton	nikʷ	nitū

Nouns ending with final stressed short low-tone vowels follow the same patterns as above.

Final accent, high tone

This table shows nouns that are accented on their final syllable, with a short high-tone vowel at the end of the word:

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
egà	daytime sky	egaḳà	egaḳâ	egaḳas	egaḳal	egaḳan	egaḳī	egaḳō
gʷì	beach	gʷiḳì	gʷiḳî	gʷiḳis	gʷiḳil	gʷiḳin	gʷiḳĕ	gʷiḳʷ
makò	seal (animal)	makoḳò	makoḳô	makoḳos	makoḳol	makoḳon	makoḳʷ	makoḳū
ʕʷè	tendril	ʕʷeḳà	ʕʷeḳâ	ʕʷeḳas	ʕʷeḳal	ʕʷeḳan	ʕʷeḳī	ʕʷeḳō

Nouns ending in -ù follow the pattern for -ò, because they arose from labialization of a vowel that otherwise became /o/.

A "double essive" case is sometimes seen in the -ò declension, where the final labialized consonant loses its labialization and adds -ī.

Many nouns that end in a final high-tone short vowel historically ended with a final -ḳ. But after the vowel /u/, this consonant became a coarticulated labiovelar stop, and was later retained as /ṗ/ when the velar stop otherwise disappeared. The same is true of the non-ejective version of this sound. Thus, words ending in -p or -ṗ decline following the patterns of the standalone word below, which means "teacher":

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
p	teacher	p	pʷ	pṡ	pḷ	pṅ	pī	pō

Nouns with word-final falling tone, long vowels

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
pā	school	pâ	pâ	pâs	pâl	pân	pê	pô
mī	bottle	bè	bê	bes	bel	ben	bē	bē
kʷō	bed	kʷaʕʷù	kʷaʕʷû	kʷaʕʷus	kʷaʕʷul	kʷaʕʷun	kʷaʕʷ	kʷaʕʷū

Secondary vowel-stem declensions

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
xʷèye	curved claw
kʷăkʷ	stone tablet
empĕ	sword	empyì	empyî	empyis	empyil	empyin	empĕ	empyŭ
mī
ḳē	wheel	ḳê	ḳê	ḳês	ḳêl	ḳên	ḳê	ḳêʕʷ
lū	milk

NOTE, possibly eliminate the first two rows of the secondaries, since final -e and final -u can only come from stressed positions even if in a compound where they are unstressed, except for when the /e/ follows /u/, in which case it comes from /u/ or /a/.

Tertiary vowel-stem declensions

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
atá	spirit	atakà	atakâ	atakas	atakal	atakan	atakī	atakō
šonorí	depravity, perversion	šonorikà	šonorikâ	šonorikas	šonorikal	šonorikan	šonorikī	šonorikō
ló	flower petal	lokà	lokâ	lokas	lokal	lokan	lokī	lokō
lé	diaper	lekà	lekâ	lekas	lekal	lekan	lekī	lekō

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
amâ	whip	amâ	amâ	amâs	amâl	amân	amê	amô
gʷî	spy, thief	gʷî	gʷî	gʷîs	gʷîl	gʷîn	gʷê	gʷŭ
dô	swamp	dô	dô	dôs	dôl	dôn	daʕʷ	dô
hʷê	military road	hʷê	hʷê	hʷês	hʷêl	hʷên	hʷê	hʷê
ḳʷû	urine	ḳʷuʕʷù	ḳʷuʕʷû	ḳʷuʕʷus	ḳʷuʕʷul	ḳʷuʕʷun	ḳʷuʕʷ	ḳʷuʕʷū

Many words on the ^ tone can be declined using ´-style endings.

Final -ú might not exist because of retention of the final /kp/ cluster as /p/ rather than deletion.

Primary consonant-stem declensions

Nominative	(English)	Accusative	Locative	Possessive	Dative	Circumstantial	Essive	Instrumental
gis	fruit tree	gixì	gixî	gixis	gixil	gixin	gixĕ	gixʷ
maŋan	prey	maŋaŋà	maŋaŋâ	maŋaŋas	maŋaŋal	maŋaŋan	maŋaŋī	maŋaŋō

Number

Singular

Most nouns are singular in their unarmed form. Exceptions use the singulative affix ṅ.

Dual

The dual affix, -(C)o, is mostly confined to denoting human couples and certain paired objects such as double doors. The (C) indicates a consonant that reflects the gender of the noun. It does not generally function as a generic marker for two of an object. Note that this is the same word as ô "married couple", the only difference being the loss of stress.

Plural

The plural affix for all nouns is -yi. This is the same word, historically, as yî "book", because a book is a bundle of papers and this was extended by analogy to other objects. The parent language, Gold had no plural marker, and this is why the plural markers are different in the various languages derived from it.

Stem-final consonant mutations in the plural

The plural affix fuses to the word stem, and mutates according to the last sound in the word it modifies:

Conso	Fused form	Notes
∅	yi
ʔ	či	This denotes words that end with the [à] tone, regardless of which vowel it is on.
p	pyi
ṗ	ṗyi
b	bi	Possibly survives as byi?
m	bi	See above
l	lyi	Some speakers pronounce this as a true palatal [ʎ], others as [ly]
s	ši
š	ši
z	ži
ž	ži
ŋ	ǯi
ʕ
pʷ	pʷi	All labials "defeat" the palatal /y/, effectively reducing the affix to -i.
ṗʷ	ṗʷi
bʷ	bʷi
kʷ	kʷi
ġʷ	ġʷi
ʕʷ	ʕʷi
hʷ	hʷi
ḳʷ	ḳʷi
xʷ	xʷi
gʷ	gʷi
ṁ	ṁbi
ṅ	ṅǯi
ŋ̇	ŋ̇ǯi
ṡ	ṣ̌i
ṣ̌	ṣ̌i
ḷ	ḷyi

Stems ending in syllabic consonants do not behave differently depending on whether the syllabic consonant is preceded by another consonant or by a vowel. Thus the plural of sṁ "dolphin" is sṁbi just as the plural of loṁ "womb, uterus" is loṁbi.

Gender and animacy

Background of gender system

Khulls inherited the Gold gender system, based on consonants. In the Gold language, nearly all nouns had mandatory classifier prefixes that assigned them to a particular gender and animacy level. A sound change that removed all initial vowels made some of the noun classifier prefixes disappear, and this triggered a restructuring of the grammar, and soon the deletion of the remaining classifier prefixes followed, as they were no longer necessary. However, the concept of animacy and gender remained even though it was no longer overtly marked on nouns.

The classifier prefixes survived in a few nouns. Preservation of noun class prefixes happened for one of a few reasons:

1. Noun classes were preserved when affected by sound changes that masked their form to such an extent that they were no longer recognizable as noun prefixes. In most cases, this referred to nouns whose stem was vowel-initial and accented on the first syllable, which meant that, with sound changes that happened early in Khulls, the classifier itself would come to be part of a stressed syllable, and therefore unlike all other classifiers. These words tended to survive intact. For example, the classifier prefix mi-, which appeared on most words for edible objects, was preserved in the Khulls word mṡ "salt" because it was not recognizable by the speakers as a prefix.
2. Noun class prefixes were never deleted from their titular nouns; that is, the nouns that defined the class. For example, the classifier prefix sa-, which described words for objects found in the ocean, was not deleted from săpo "fish". Since these tended to be stressed syllables as well, the two cases of preservation could be united under the same rule.

List and description of genders

See also Proto-Moonshine_language#Consonant-based_gender_system.

Khulls has three feminine genders, one masculine gender, and a three-way contrast between epicene, unisex, and neuter. The differences between the genders are described below:

The three feminine genders

The greater feminine gender, marked primarily by /m/, mostly contains words for adult human females, but also certain words for edible objects, since the previously existing classifier prefix mi- was subsumed into this gender. The greater feminine gender occupies the highest position on the animacy hierarchy, Level 3. Originally, the food words were an exception to this, but by the time of classical Khulls all nouns' animacy status had come to be determined by their gender and therefore many food items were considered animate by the grammar.

The lesser feminine gender, marked primarily by /s/, occupies level 2 on the animacy hierarchy. Here one finds more words for adult human females, but this category is a closed class, meaning that any newly coined words for adult females will belong to the greater feminine gender. Instead, most words in this gender are for objects which are seen as feminine only metaphorically. They include most words for celestial objects, fire, snakes, worms, abstract concepts such as love and beauty, rivers, soft objects, women's clothing and feminine hygiene products, fish, objects found in or near the ocean, and nations. The only commonality uniting all of these objects is that all of them began with a noun classifier prefix beginning with the letter f in the ancient Tapilula language, and they kept their gender identity even after the noun classifier system fell out of use and sound changes delivered the sound into /s/.

The young feminine gender, marked primarily by /n/, occupies level 2 on the animacy hierarchy and refers mostly to young girls and women of pre-marriageable age. However it also contains words for fruit, buildings, birds, sharp objects, and most placenames. Words for feminine anatomy that begin with ŋ- are mostly part of this gender, even when describing adults.

The masculine gender

The masculine gender refers to men and boys. It occupies the highest position on the animacy hierarchy, level 3, sharing this with the greater feminine gender. By contrast to the feminine genders above, there is no age distinction in the masculine gender, meaning that young boys are placed as equal with adults of both sexes. There are very few words for nonliving or nonhuman objects in this gender. Some words for fruits are masculine, however, including any that end with -è (originally the word for orange).

In Romanization, additional astronomical symbols can be repurposed to mark the non-binary genders of Khulls. The pattern used here is:

♀ GREATER FEMININE
⚳ LESSER FEMININE
☿ YOUNG FEMININE 
♂ MASCULINE
♁ EPICENE
☼ UNISEX
⚲ NEUTER
⚙ BABY

Animacy

In a compound noun whose elements are of different genders, the gender highest in the animacy hierarchy dominates. If two morphemes are at the same level on the animacy hierarchy, the rightmost morpheme dominates. There are four tiers in the animacy hierarchy.