Vrkhazhian nouns are called yanāza (singular yanas). They are declined for case, gender, and number. Vrkhazhian can be said to have two main noun classes or genders: animate and inanimate. Within the animate gender, there are three subgenders: the feminine, the masculine, and the neuter. Animate nouns are inflected for six cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, genitive, and equative) while inanimate nouns are inflected for only four (absolutive, ergative/instrumental, genitive, equative). Lastly, all nouns regardless of gender are inflected for two grammatical numbers (singular and plural). The assignment of gender to nouns is mostly non-arbitrary and determined by common, though not exhaustive, sets of criteria.
Nouns that are often feminine:
- female humans, spirits, and deities
- all domesticated animals
- collective nouns involving people in general (i.e people belonging to countries, caravans)
- tools relating to agriculture
Nouns that are often masculine:
- male humans, spirits, and deities
- wild animals that are dangerous, either in behaviour or by nature of their features (i.e predatory animals and poisonous/venomous animals)
- tools relating to warfare or which by nature involve injuring humans and animals (i.e surgical tools)
- collective nouns involving people specifically in a military or aggressive context (i.e armies and violent mobs)
Nouns that are often neuter:
- children and young animals
- wild animals that are safe
- seemingly animate things like rivers, oceans, wind, and fire
- certain body parts such as the arms, legs, heart, eyes, mouth, and neck
Nouns that are often inanimate:
- still-moving things like trees, mountains, and buildings
- abstract concepts, including actions and states
- etc.
Noun inflection
Vrkhazhian nouns are declined for four to six cases. Cases are the forms and suffixes that nouns take when they occur in certain parts of a sentence. For animate nouns the six cases are thus:
- The nominative (NOM) case indicates the subject or agent (doer) of a verb ("Henry runs to the store", "Henry sees Sam").
- The vocative (VOC) case indicates a direct addressee ("Hey, you", "Father, what do you see?")
- The accusative (ACC) case indicates the object or patient (receiver/target) of a verb ("Henry sees Sam", "Henry gave Sam a pencil", "John wrote to Mary").
- The instrumental (INS) case indicates the instrument by which a verb is done or the theme of a ditransitive verb ("Henry gave Sam a pencil, "I wrote with a pen")
- The genitive (GEN) case indicates that another noun is modified by the noun marked with this case and the marked noun having various roles such as possessor, origin, or source ("Sam's dog", "Men of Rome").
- The equative (EQU) case indicates that another noun is likened to or equivalent to the noun marked with this case ("As a boy, I used to run a lot", "He fights like a coward", "a hawk-like grin")
For inanimate nouns, the four cases are thus:
- The absolutive (ABS) case indicates the subject of an intransitive verb ("'Henry laughed, Sam fell down") and the object or patient of a transitive verb (Henry hit Sam)
- The ergative-instrumental (ERG-INS or just ERG) indicates the agent of a transitive verb ("Henry hit Sam) but also fulfills the role of the instrumental case as in animate nouns.
- The genitive (GEN) case fulfills the same roles as the case does in animate nouns but
- The equative (EQU) case behaves the same as it does in animate nouns.
strong masculine noun
rēbis (man, husband)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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rēb-is |
rēb-īs
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| Accusative
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rēb-in |
rēb-īn
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| Genitive
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strong feminine noun
lumbus (woman, wife)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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lumb-us |
lumb-ūs
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| Accusative
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lumb-un |
lumb-ūn
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| Genitive
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strong neuter noun
arśas (vessel)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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arś-as |
arś-ās
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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arś-aḫ |
arś-āḫ
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weak masculine noun
esîs (boar)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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es-îs
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| Accusative
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es-în
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| Genitive
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weak feminine noun
masûs (sea, saltwater)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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mas-ûs
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| Accusative
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mas-ûn
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| Genitive
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weak neuter noun
kapâs (drinking water)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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kap-âs
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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kap-âḫ
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Noun states
Nouns are also considered to be placed into what are called "noun states". In Vrkhazhian, there are only two states: the absolute state, or status absolutus, and the construct state, or status constructus. The latter form of the noun is marked by the removal of the case endings or a change of the gender-marking vowel.
The construct state is used when a noun is modified by another noun that is in the genitive case. This is also the form the noun takes when possessive suffixes are attached. Nouns that that are not placed in the construct state are considered to be in the absolute state, which is the default state of all nouns.
rēbis (man, husband)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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rēb-e |
rēb-ē
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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rēb-i |
rēb-ī
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|
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lumbus (woman, wife)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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lumb-a |
lumb-ā
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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lumb-u |
lumb-ū
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arśas (vessel)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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arś-a |
arś-ā
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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|
esîs (boar)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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es-ê
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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es-î
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masûs (sea, saltwater)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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mas-â
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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mas-û
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kapâs (drinking water)
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Singular |
Plural
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| Nominative
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kap-â
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| Accusative
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| Genitive
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Noun derivation
Vrkhazhian nouns are mostly derived from verbs and there are numerous ways to derive nouns from them:
