:: CIIL Grammars ::

Download Angami Book

2.2.1. The Human Class

kpthmi	: Common or Masculine : ‘teacher; male teacher’
kpthmipf	: Feminine : ‘female teacher’
krgmi	: thief : male thief’
krgmipf	: ‘female thief’
kdmi	: ‘ruler; king’
kdmipf	: ‘queen’
ny	: ‘child; boy’
nypf	: ‘girl’

and n

the unproductive affixes:

Gender is also expressed by the generic words for ‘male’ and ‘female’. They precede the noun unlike other noun attributes.

Thus,

smmi	‘widower’
smmipf	‘widow’

thn smmi	‘widow’
thpf smmi	‘widower’

2.2.2. The Non-human class

Wild quadrupeds-

Masc. : tsh

Fem : krh

Common : Unmarked

and pu

tsh

are generic terms for female and male wild animals respectively.

Birds -

Masc. : dz

Fem. : kr

Common : Unmarked

and pu

are generic words for female and male birds respectively.

2.2.3. Domesticated quadrupeds

Hornless-

Horned-

2.2.4. It is to be noted that

‘cat’ has human gender markers while t

‘dog’ has a human masculine suffix but retains the non-human feminine suffix. However, when the non-human animate nouns take case makers, t

‘dog’ takes the case marker for the human noun.

2.2.5. Names of human beings and animals like ‘dog’ will be considered human because they take case markers for the human noun.

2.2.6. Two obvious exceptions to the above generalisations would be:

2.3. The Diminutive suffix

Angami has a diminutive suffix -y

which is suffixed to the substantive to mark diminution in substantives of all genders.

The diminutive suffix follows the number marker

Angami Index Page

FeedBack | Contact Us | Home