Incidentally, the nouns listed above
refer to inanimate objects. An extremely limited number of nouns also
show opposition in gender, as in:
|
| chokra |
‘boy’ |
chokri |
‘girl’ |
| mama |
‘uncle’ |
mami |
‘aunt’ |
| murga |
‘cock’ |
murgi |
‘hen’ etc. |
|
Incidentally the nouns that
show the gender marker are of recent borrowings from Hindi. Further,
Nagas who use these words in this language do not seem to be aware of
the gender system in these pairs and use them as single indivisible
words partly because such pairs are few in number and they behave like
any other noun, the vast majority of which do not have any gender
markers, as in:
|
| puali |
‘daughter’ |
guru |
‘cow’ |
| suali |
‘girl’ |
kitab |
‘book’ |
| didi |
‘elder sister’ |
‘makela |
‘girls dothi’ |
| kokai |
‘elder brother’ |
etc. |
|
|
Sub-grouping:
|
In the preceding discussion,
it was seen that all the nouns do not take the number markers. Further
even when all the nouns show contrast in case, not all of them show
the same number of contrast. These overt differences permit the
sub-grouping of the nouns in this language into a few sub-groups. The
first major sub-grouping would be between nouns referring to living
beings and non-living beings (for the purpose of this sub-grouping,
tree and plants would belong to non-living beings). For instance, a
group of nouns are capable of showing the presence of number marker
whereas some others are not. Similarly the nouns that overtly mark the
number also mark overtly the accusative case whereas the nouns that do
not mark the number also fail to mark the accusative case relation.
The nouns that mark overtly the number and the accusative case
relation incidentally refer to the animate beings and the nouns that
are incapable of overtly marking the number and accusative case
relation refer to inanimate beings, for instance:
|
| (a) |
suali |
‘girl’ |
: sualikhan |
‘girls’ |
sualik |
‘girl’(acc) |
| |
mayki |
‘woman' |
: maykikhan |
‘women’ |
maykik |
‘woman’(acc) |
| |
manu |
‘man’ |
: manukhan |
‘men’ |
manuk |
‘man’ (acc) |
| |
guru |
‘cow’ |
: gurukhan |
‘cows’ |
guruk |
‘cow’ (acc) |
| |
suray |
‘bird’ |
: suraykhan |
‘birds’ etc. |
|
|
| (b) |
pata |
‘leaf/leaves’ |
|
|
|
|
| |
gas |
‘plant/plants’ |
|
|
|
|
| |
gaste |
‘in the
plant/plants’ |
|
|
|
| |
moy gas ekta katise ‘I cut a tree’ etc. |
| |
1 2 3 4 1 4 3 2 |
|
These sub-group of nouns are designated respectively
as : nouns animate being class (abbreviated Nani class)
and nouns inanimate being class (abbreviated Nina class).
While no further sub-division is possible with the Nina
class of nouns, Nani class of nouns can be further sub-divided
on the basis of some shared features. For instance certain
group of nouns show the absence of the locative case
marker while certain other group of nouns show the absence
of the dative case marker. Further the group of nouns
that show the absence of the dative case marker select
third person pronoun itu ‘it’ or heytu ‘it’ for substituting
a noun/noun phrase in the previous clause/sentence,
as in:
|
NanH class of nouns= + locative case, - dative case
|
| kukur |
‘dog’ |
kukurte |
‘in the dog’ |
| guru |
‘cow’ |
gurute |
‘in the cow’ |
| puhu |
‘deer’ |
puhute |
‘in the deer’ |
| moy guru gas dise |
|
‘I gave grass to the
cow’ etc. |
|
NH class of nouns=+dative case, - locative case
|
| moy sualike bacak dise |
‘I give the girl a child’ |
| moy maykike mos dise |
‘I gave the woman fish’ etc. |
|
(tay)
|
| suali jayse |
‘the girl went’ |
tay jayse |
‘she went’ |
| mayki jayse |
‘the woman went’ |
tay jasye |
‘she went’ |
| manu jayse |
‘the man went’ |
tay jayse |
‘he went’ |
| kaka jayse |
‘the uncle went’ |
tay jayse |
‘he went’ etc. |
|
(itu1)
|
| mos girise |
‘the meat fell’ |
itu girise |
‘it fell’ |
| gas girise |
‘the plant fell’ |
itu girise |
‘it fell’ |
|
(heytu)
|
| gor girise |
‘the house fell’ |
heytu girise |
‘it fell’ |
| guru girise |
‘the cow fell’ |
heytu girise |
‘it fell’ |
|
The group of nouns that shows the absence of locative marker and
selects tay ‘he/she’ refers to human beings and the group of nouns
that shows the absence of dative case marker but shows the presence of
the locative case marker and also the number marker and selects itu/heytu
for substituting these nouns refer to animals and birds. These two
sub-groups of nouns can be formally designated respectively as
|
1 The difference between the words it and height
is the size of the object that is substituted-Therefore, it and heytu
could be translated as ‘the small thing’ and the big thing, rather
than it. The Nina class of nouns cannot be sub-grouped on the basis of
this difference, as small and big are subjective terms and not
absolute ones.
|
