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2.4.3. Some kinship terms take ny before the plural marker -k is added.
 
pu ‘father’ punyk ‘fathers’
u ‘mother’ unyk ‘mothers’
ny ‘child’ nynyk ‘children’
m ‘uncle’ mnyk ‘uncles’
pf ‘sister’ pfnyk ‘sister’
 
2.4.4. Number is not grammatically significant in Angami in that it is marked neither in the verb not in the adjective.
 
2.4.5. Number markers are suffixed to the whole noun phrase rather than to the head noun.
 
         (1) lsd kv pu                      ‘one good book’
              lsd kvk                        ‘the good books’
              lsd kv-ni                           ‘the two good books’
 
         (2) k kz kzv                       ‘big, beautiful house’
              k kz kzv-ni                  ‘the two, big, beautiful houses’

              k kz kzvk                    ‘the big, beautiful houses’
              k kz kzv pt-
              (k)                                             ‘all (the) big beautiful houses’
 
         (3) tf kt kni                            ‘two black dogs’
              tf kt-ni                           ‘the two black dogs’
              tf ktk                                  ‘the black dogs’
 
2.5.0. The Article
 
     An Angami substantive unlike a typical English noun, can stand alone, without any article. There is no indefinite article proper. The cardinal pu ‘one’ states the number as in ‘There wa one king’ rather than function as an article as in ‘There was a king’. It may have an idefinite signification.
 
2.5.1. The definite article is - which is suffixed to the substantive:
 
k ‘house’ k ‘the house’
thmi ‘man’ thmi ‘the man’
rn ‘village’ rn ‘the village’
tf ‘dog’ tf ‘the dog’
thd ‘bull’ thd ‘the bull’
 
2.5.2. Human feminine substantives, which take -prf as the gender marker drop - obligatorily.
 
Thus,
         ny++pf®nypf                         ‘daughter’ or ‘the daughter’
 
        Such substantives will, then, be ambiguous between the definite and indefinite meanings. This not true of agent substantives i.e.substantives marked by the indefinite agent suffix -mie
         eg. kpthmipf                         ‘female teacher (any)’
              kpthpf                               ‘the female teacher (a particular one)’
 
2.5.3. Non-human feminine substantives take -pf as the definite article.
 
For instance,
thkr ‘cow’
thkrpf ‘the cow’
fkr ‘bitch’
fkrf ‘the bitch’
 
2.5.4. With Agent substantives, when the definite article, - is present, the agent suffix -mie is deleted.
 
krgmi ‘a thief; a male thief’
  ‘thieves; male thieves’
krg ‘the thief; the male thief’
kdmi ‘a king; a ruler’
  ‘kings; rulers’
kd ‘the king; the ruler’
 
     As stated earlier, the definite article - is dropped when the gender suffix -pf is present.
 
kdmipf ‘a queen (any)’
kdpf ‘the queen (a particular one)’
kthmipf ‘a female writer (indef.)’
kthpf ‘the female writer (def.)’
 

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