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Let's Make a Language: Day 5, Noun Class, Case Marking, and Number

Today is going to be all about nouns and noun classes and case marking! Because Munya is an analytic language all markings are going to be separate words. I have decided that Munya will only have one noun class to keep things simple. I do prefer simple languages, succinct ones most of all. I want Munya to play all of its cards up front and not hide much behind complex (synthetic) grammatical markers.

Case Marking

I've decided on seven cases; nominative (with a separate topic marker), accusative, genitive, and dative,. Each case will have its own marker that follows the noun it modifies.

So, first, I'm going to take the word [ˈkʰa] "to make" and use it as the nominative marker.

Byu ga demi.
dog NOM run
(the) dog runs.

I've already decided the source of the topic marker in the previous entry, but I'll expand here. So far, Munya has two demonstratives [t͡se] for "this" and [na] for "that", so I took the word for "that" and used it as the topic marker.

Kana na fyama li dalo.
kana TOP person PL grow
As for Kana, people change.

As for the accusative marker, I've had a couple ideas floating around in my head for what word could be its origin, but I think I've settled on [ˈso.mi5] "to take" which I will clip down to [so].

Kana ga ku dalo so.
kana NOM cut grass ACC
Kana cuts grass.

Next up is the genitive marker. For this I'll create a new verb [ˈfa1.sa5] "to grasp", which following the previous example I will clip down to the first syllable [fa1].

Laula ga lau fa.
river NOM water GEN
(the) river's water

Home stretch now, the dative case will be marked by another new word [tʲi1] "to hold".

Kana ga hi dun so byu tyi.
kana NOM give rock ACC dog DAT
Kana gives the rock to the dog.

Number and Counting

So far, I have decided that Munya will have two numbers, singular and plural with the plural being marked by the particle [lʲi]. I want to expand on this. It's been a while since I've had a dual number in one of my languages, so I'm going to add that now.

Before I can do that, though, I need to think about the cardinal numbers and decide on one for the number 2, because that is where this dual marker will evolve from. I want a more complex counting system, so I'm going to implement some counting words.

For now, lets make a generic counting word and a person counting word.

I've created a word [ˈfʲa5.ku1] "to count" by joining the words [ˈfʲa5.le] "to bring together" and [ku1] "to cut". This will serve as the generic counting word, taking on the meaning of "number" when used as a noun.

Next, I'm going to use the word [tʰu] "head" as in "counting heads" as the marker for counting people.

I have always struggled in the past with making cardinal numbers 1-10 that I like, so these are highly subject to change. The only decision I've made that I think I'll stick with is that the Nomads do not have a word for zero, as the concept has simply not been invented yet in their area.

  1. [ˈpa.ku1]
  2. [ˈnai5]
  3. [ˈt͡sa]
  4. [ˈle.pa5]
  5. [ˈke.nei5]
  6. [ˈmaː1]
  7. [ˈsa.paː51]
  8. [ˈsi.ta]
  9. [ˈti1.sa5]
  10. [ˈlʲei]

And there we go! Now we have a way to count things such as:

Tisa du fyama lyi.
nine person person PL
Nine people.

Now back to the original point of doing all of this, a marker for the dual number. I'll just take the word [ˈnai5] in its entirety and use that.

And that's a wrap for day 5! Join me next time as I tackle adpositions.


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