Inlinguistics, the termnominal refers to a category used to group togethernouns andadjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number ofmorphological andsyntactic properties. The systems used in such languages to show agreement can be classified broadly as gender systems, noun class systems orcase marking, classifier systems, and mixed systems.[1] Typically anaffix related to the noun appears attached to the otherparts of speech within a sentence to create agreement. Such morphological agreement usually occurs in parts within thenoun phrase, such asdeterminers and adjectives. Languages with overt nominal agreement vary in how and to what extent agreement is required.
The history of research onnominals dates back to European studies on Latin and Bantu in which agreement betweennouns andadjectives according to the class of thenoun can be seen overtly.
Within the study of European languages, recognition of thenominal grouping is reflected in traditional grammar studies based onLatin, which has a highly productive marking system.Nominals can be seen in the shared morphemes that attach to the ends ofnouns andadjectives and agree in case and gender. In the example below, 'son' and 'good' agree innominative case because they are the subject of the sentence and at the same time they agree in gender because the ending is masculine. Likewise, 'the dog' and 'wild' share the same morphemes that show they agree in accusative case and masculine gender. In Latin agreement goes beyondnouns andadjectives.
fīlius
[The] son
bonus
good
amat(1)
[he] loves
canem(2)
[the] dog.ACC
ferocem(3).
wild.ACC
fīliusbonus amat(1) canem(2)ferocem(3).
{[The] son}good {[he] loves} {[the] dog.ACC}wild.ACC
Thegood son loves thewild dog.
The earliest study ofnoun classes was conducted in 1659 onBantu languages,[2] and this study has to this day undergone only very minor modifications. These alterations began withWilhelm Bleek'sAncient Bantu which led toProto-Bantu.[2] The following example is from the Bantu languageGanda. Fornominal classes in Bantu,see below.
Although much of the research on nominals focuses on their morphological andsemantic properties, syntacticallynominals can be considered a "super category" which subsumesnoun heads andadjective heads. This explains why languages that take overt agreement features have agreement inadjectives andnouns.
In Chomsky's 1970 [±V, ±N] analysis, words with the feature "plusnoun" that are not verbs "minusverb", are predicted to benouns, while words with the feature "plusverb" and "minusnoun" would beverbs. Following from this, when a word has both characteristics ofnouns andverbs we getadjectives. When a word lacks either feature, one logically getsprepositions.[3]
| +V | –V | |
|---|---|---|
| +N | Adjectives | Nouns |
| –N | Verbs | Prepositions |
The following tree demonstrates that the category [+N] groups togethernouns andadjectives.
This suggests English illustrates characteristics ofnominals at a syntactic level becausenouns andadjectives take the same complements at the head level. Likewise,verbs andprepositions take the same kinds of complements at the head level. This parallel distribution is predicted by the feature distribution of lexical items.
InRussian, the nominal category containsnouns,pronouns,adjectives and numerals. These categories share features of case, gender, and number each of which are inflected with differentsuffixes. Nominals are seen as secondary inflection of agreement. Understanding the different noun classes and how they relate to gender and number is important because the agreement of adjectives will change depending on the type of noun.[4]
Example of nominal predicate:
Although there is not complete agreement about the categorization of noun classes in Russian, a common view breaks the noun classes up into five categories or classes, each of which gets different affixes depending on gender, case and number.
Declensional class refers to the form rather than semantics.
| Declinational class 1 | Declinational class 2 | Indeclinational |
|---|---|---|
| Noun ending in -C | Noun ending in -a | Other |
| Masculine | Female | Neuter |
Nouns and adjectives inflect for case and gender.
In Russian, nominals occur when:
Cases
Gender and class
Russian has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Gender and class are closely related in that the noun class will reflect the gender marking a nominal will get. Reflecting gender in Russian is usually restricted to the singular with a few exceptions in the plural. Gender is reflected on both the noun and the adjective or pronoun. Gendered nominals are clearly reflected in anaphors and relative pronouns because even if there is no explicit inflection upon the nouns they inherit animacy, gender and number from theirantecedent.[4]
Affixes identifying one gender
| Number/Case | Affix | Gender |
|---|---|---|
| SG/NOM ACC | ∅ | Masc |
| SG/NOM ACC | -o | Neuter |
| SG INST | -ju | Fem |
| SG GEN | -u | Masc |
| SG LOC | ú | Masc |
| SG LOC | í | Fem |
| PL NOM | 'e | Masc |
Affixes linked with two genders
| Number/Case | Affix | Gender |
|---|---|---|
| SG/NOM ACC | ∅ | Masc, Fem |
| SG NOM | -a | Masc, Fem |
| SG ACC | -u | Masc, Fem |
| SG INT | -oj | Masc, Fem |
| SG GEN | -a | Masc, Neut |
| SG DAT | -u | Masc, Neut |
| SG INST | -om | Masc, Neut |
| PL NOM/ACC | -a | Masc, Neut |
Russian has two numbers: singular and plural. Number is inherent to the noun so it is reflected by inflection on the noun and the agreeing nominals such as attributive adjectives, predicates and relative pronouns. There is only alteration of singular and plural between semantic classes 2–5 because class 1 does not distinguish between one or more than one.[4]
Adjectives
Adjectives agree with gender, case and number markings and consequently agree with the noun class.
Short form basic inflectional pattern
| Masc | Neut | Fem | PL |
|---|---|---|---|
| ∅ | -o | -a | -i |
Nominals are a common feature ofIndigenous Australian languages, many of which do not categorically differentiate nouns from adjectives.
Some features of nominals in some Australian languages include:
An example paradigm is given below, adapted from .[6] One can see that each of the nominal morphemes in each class attaches to both the nouns and the adjectives.
| Type | Noun | Adjective | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | na-rangem | na-kimuk | 'big boy' |
| feminine | ngal-kohbanj | ngal-kimuk | 'big old-woman' |
| vegetable | man-mim | man-kimuk | 'big seed' |
| neuter | kun-warde | kun-kimuk | 'big rock' |
Nominal structures are also found inBantu languages. These languages constitute a sub-set of theNiger-Congo languages inAfrica. There are approximately 250 different varieties of Bantu. Within these languages, nouns have historically been classified into certain groups based on shared characteristics. For example, noun class 1 and 2 represent humans and other animate objects, while noun class 11 represents long thing objects, and abstract nouns.[7]
Bantu languages use different combinations of the approximately 24 differentProto-Bantunoun classes.[2] The language with the highest number of documentednoun classes isGanda, which utilizes 21 of the 24 noun classes.[2] This ranges all the way to zero, which is the case in Komo D23, whosenoun class system has faded out over time.[2] Languages that have approximately six classes paired for singular and plural and about six other classes that are not paired (e.g. infinitive and locative classes) are classified ascanonical noun class systems, systems that have manynoun classes.[2] These systems are far more typical of Bantu languages than the alternative,reduced noun class systems, such as Komo D23 and other languages that have limitednoun classes.[2]
A common feature of Bantu languages is nominal gender class agreement. This agreement can also be described as an extensive system of concord.[2] For every noun class, there is a corresponding gender class prefix. The nominal gender prefixes are shown below, with the "Proto-Bantu" (i.e. historical) prefixes on the left-hand side, and modern day Sesotho prefixes on the right-hand side. Note that modern day Sesotho has lost manynoun classes.[7] This is typical of many other Bantu languages, as well.
| Proto-Bantu | Sesotho | Proto-Bantu | Sesotho |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1: mo- | mo- | 12: ka- | |
| 1a: ø | ø | 13: to- | |
| 2: βa- | ba- | 14: βo- | bo- |
| 2a: β̀o- | bo- | 15: ko- | ho- |
| 3: mo- | mo- | 16: pa- | |
| 4: me- | me- | 17: ko- | ho- |
| 5: le- | le- | 18: mo- | |
| 6: ma- | ma- | 19: pi- | |
| 7: ke- | se- | 20: ɣo | |
| 8: βi-/di | di- | 21: ɣi | |
| 9: n- | (N)- | 22: ɣa | |
| 10: di-n- | di(N)- | 23: ɣe | |
| 11: lo- |
As can be seen in the table above, in theSesotho variety of Bantu (spoken mainly in South Africa) there are approximately 15 nominal gender class prefixes.In this language, nouns and adjectives share the same gender class prefix. Adjectives take a 'pre'-prefix in addition to the main prefix. The main prefix (the one closest to the adjective, which is in bold in the example below) agrees with the prefix attached to the noun, whereas the 'pre'-prefix does not always agree with the noun.[7]
The following examples fromSwahili demonstrate class agreement with the noun, adjective and verb.[2] The different classes of the nouns in Swahili dictate which prefix will also agree with the adjective and verb.[2] It is not always the case in Bantu languages that the verb has noun agreement in the form of nominals, or in any form, but in Swahili it is a good representation of how these prefixes travel across the associated words.[2] In the first Swahili example, the noun has the prefixm- because it is part of class 1 for human beings. The prefixm- then agrees with the adjectivem-dogo. The verb agreement is different simply because the verb agreement for class 1 isa- rather thanm-. The second example has the prefixki- because the nounbasket is part of class 7. Class 7 has the same prefix form for nouns, adjectives and verbs.[2]
M-toto
m-dogo
a-mefika
M-toto m-dogo a-mefika
CL1.child CL1.little CL1.arrived
The little child arrived[2]
Ki-kapu
ki-dogo
ki-mefika
Ki-kapu ki-dogo ki-mefika
CL7.basket CL7.little CL7.arrived
The little basket arrived[2]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
