Chapter 42The Structure of the Noun Phrase

42.1 The modifier-position template

All prenominal modifiers in Hokkaido Ainu precede the head noun, and postpositional material follows it. No agreement morphology links a modifier to its head; modification is juxtapositional throughout Nakagawa (2024: 261, 283); Shibatani (1990: 17–18); Ijäs (2023). The position hierarchy for attested modifier types is invariant:

Positions need not all be filled; most NPs contain one or two pre-head elements. When multiple positions are present, their order is fixed — a demonstrative cannot follow a numeral, nor a numeral follow a property verb. The following constructed example fills positions 1, 3, 5, and 6:

The line between an NP-internal modifier and a compound noun is drawn by four diagnostics (person-affix position, affiliative-suffix position, lexicalization, and the concept+concept rule) treated in Chapter 39 (Noun–Noun Compounding: Headedness, Linking, and Semantics) after Kirikae (1984) (via Nakagawa (2024: 261–264)). The subclass properties of the head noun — which nouns can serve as argument heads, which can be relativized, and which require a modifier — are in Chapter 34 (Nominal Subclasses and Obligatorily-Possessed (Bound) Nouns).

42.2 Demonstrative prenominals

The demonstrative system distinguishes two axes that Japanese conflates in a single この／その／あの series: on-site deixis (locating the referent in the shared perceptual field) and discourse-anaphoric deixis (tracking a previously mentioned referent) Nakagawa (2024: 281–283); Nakagawa (2022: 480).

The vowel quality of the initial syllable of the on-site series correlates with distance: the narrow front vowel of tan encodes proximity and the wider back vowel of toan encodes distance. This has been proposed as sound symbolism in the deictic system, with longer forms (taan) encoding more information content than shorter ones (tan) aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026) (nukopoli, 2025-12-27) ‹contested›. The proposal has not been evaluated against the full corpus.

Non-Saru/Chitose dialects use nean where Saru has ne; eastern Shizunai has ikia/ikirok Nakagawa (2024: 282). A demonstrative prenominal combined with the formal noun pe ‘thing’ or hi ‘thing, fact, time’ yields a demonstrative pronoun: tanpe ‘this thing’, toanpe ‘that thing’, neap ‘that aforementioned thing’ Nakagawa (2024: 287). A demonstrative may be followed directly by a locative case particle — taan ta 'over there' — because the formal noun hi is historically elided in such constructions Nakagawa (2024: 288). The full paradigm — including the interrogative ney and anaphora functions — is in Chapter 50 (Demonstratives, Anaphora, and Definiteness).

42.3 Numeral and quantifier prenominals

Numerals occupy position 2, between a demonstrative and any adnoun or property verb. A numeral precedes its head noun directly with no intervening classifier — a typological contrast with Japanese, which requires a numeral counter between numeral and noun Nakagawa (2024: 461) ‹consensus›.

Nominalized numeral forms — rep ‘three things (re + pe)’, sinep ‘one thing’, tup ‘two things’ — are pronoun-like count expressions, not prenominal quantifiers. They cannot modify a noun directly: re mosir 'three worlds' is well-formed, but *rep mosir is not, because rep is already the nominalized form re + nominalizing enclitic -pe aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026) (nukopoli, 2024-11-09) ‹corpus-confirmed›. The vigesimal numeral system, ordinals, and quantifiers are in Chapter 54 (The Vigesimal Numeral System) and Chapter 55 (Numeral Classifiers, Ordinals, and Quantifier Syntax).

42.4 Property verbs and adnouns as modifiers

Property-meaning words — pirka ‘be good’, pon ‘be small’, wen ‘be bad’, tanne ‘be long’, poro ‘be big’ — are intransitive verbs in Ainu. In attributive position they immediately precede the head noun with no morphological change relative to their predicative form: the same pirka that takes a subject person index as a predicate appears zero-marked (third person) before the noun as its modifier Nakagawa (2022: 474–476); Shibatani (1990: 19). The word-class analysis and the adjective controversy are in Chapter 33 (The Word-Class Inventory and the Noun/Verb Bipartition).

Beyond property verbs, a closed set of adnouns (連体詞, prenominals) occupies the same position. Adnouns differ from property verbs in having no predicative use without the copula and in taking no person affix at all. The Saru inventory includes gender specifiers (pinne 'male', matne 'female'), the pair-selector oar 'one of a pair', the universal quantifier kes 'every', and epistemic adnouns (sonno/sino 'true/genuine', yayan 'ordinary', oya 'other') Nakagawa (2024: 283).

A property verb or adnoun at position 3 scopes over the entire nominal complex to its right, including a following formal noun such as utar:

42.5 Relative-clause modifiers

A full VP, including its person marking and aspectual material, can immediately precede a head noun and function as its modifier. No relative pronoun or dedicated relative-clause morphology marks the construction; the head noun simply appears to the right of the modifying VP Nakagawa (2022: 475); Shibatani (1990: 17):

Relativizability is restricted by noun subclass (表47, Nakagawa (2024: 215)): common nouns can be relativized; formal nouns head argument-saturated nominalizations; locative nouns cannot be relativized; pronouns cannot be relativized Nakagawa (2022: 482) ‹consensus›.

The arity account in Nakagawa (2024: 503–504) distinguishes the relative-clause construction — which leaves an argument gap in the modifying VP that the head noun fills — from nominalization with -p~-pe, which nominalizes a VP without reducing its argument count. A community analysis converges on the same point: relativization reduces the modifying clause's arity by one, whereas -p(e) nominalizes the entire clause without creating a gap aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026) (nukopoli, 2024-11-09) ‹contested›. The construction and its gap types are in Chapter 103 (Relative Clauses: The Gap Strategy and the Accessibility Hierarchy); headless and internally-headed varieties are in Chapter 104 (Headless, Internally-Headed, and Noun-Modifying Clause Analyses); argument-saturated nominalization is in Chapter 101 (The Nominalizers -p/-pe and -i/-hi (Participant, Event, Place, Fact)).

42.6 The postpositional phrase

Postpositional material follows the head noun and forms the outer boundary of the NP. The postpositional layer consists of a locative noun in its basic or long form, optionally followed by a locative case particle (ta locative, wa ablative, un allative, peka perlative) Nakagawa (2024: 294–296). The four locative case particles require a ⟨place⟩ antecedent; for a common noun, a locative noun must mediate:

Type-2 locative nouns (kim 'mountain-ward place', soy 'outside', ra 'low place') are inherently ⟨place⟩ and take a case particle directly without a preceding common-noun antecedent: kim ta arpa=an 'I went to the mountains' Nakagawa (2024: 245–246). The full inventory of locative and relational nouns, their basic and long forms, and the case-particle restrictions are in Chapter 52 (Relational and Spatial (Locative) Nouns and Their Possessed Forms).

42.7 Apposition and attributive juxtaposition

Two nouns in their concept forms placed in sequence yield either apposition or an attributive-scope construction — both realizations of the same N(concept)+N(concept) surface pattern Nakagawa (2022: 486–487); Nakagawa (2024: 218). In the attributive use, the first noun specifies the type, quality, or scope of the second: kamuy rus means 'a pelt of the bear type' — kamuy functions as an attribute, not a possessor. The diagnostic is substitution: an N₁ that is a true possessor can be replaced by a transitive-subject person prefix (a=kor cip 'my boat'), but an N₁ that is a mere attribute cannot — kamuy rus admits no person-prefix substitute for the bear Nakagawa (2022: 486–487). When a specific animal's pelt is meant, the affiliative form marks the inalienable relation: kamuy rusihi (where rus-i-hi is the affiliative form of rus 'pelt').

Apposition in the narrower sense — two NPs coreferential with the same individual — uses the same juxtaposed structure without a copular linker. The boundary with compound nouns runs through the four formal diagnostics in Chapter 39 (Noun–Noun Compounding: Headedness, Linking, and Semantics): a phrase allows person-affix placement and affiliative-suffix placement internal to the second noun, whereas a compound moves both to the outermost boundary. The contrast between attributive juxtaposition, the inalienable affiliative construction, and the kor-construction is central to Chapter 44 (Concept Form vs. Affiliative (Possessed) Form).

42.8 The possessor slot

Three constructions express possession within the NP, selected according to the alienability of the relationship Nakagawa (2024: 217–219); Nakagawa (2022: 484–485):

Pronominal possessors are expressed through the transitive-subject (A) person prefix — on kor in the alienable construction, or on the head noun in its affiliative form in the inalienable construction. The possessive morphology — the affiliative-form paradigm, semantic classes of inalienable nouns, kinship-term dialect variation, and the double-marking construction — belongs to Part VII: Chapter 46 (Adnominal Possession: Double Marking and the Appositive Construction), Chapter 48 (Kinship and Honorific Possession), and Chapter 44 (Concept Form vs. Affiliative (Possessed) Form).

42.9 NP-internal agreement

Hokkaido Ainu has no agreement morphology within the NP. Demonstratives, property verbs, adnouns, and numerals do not change form as a function of any grammatical property of the head noun: there is no gender, case, or number agreement Nakagawa (2024: 259, 283); (Corbett 2000) ‹consensus›. A modifier at positions 1–4 appears in its uninflected citation form regardless of whether the head denotes one or many entities, whether it is animate or inanimate, or whether the NP occupies subject, object, or oblique position.

The plural marker utar ‘people; plural associates’ is a postposed formal noun, not an agreement enclitic on the head or its modifiers. It follows the entire nominal complex and is itself uninflected: wen cikappo utar and wen cikappo differ only in whether utar is present; the property verb wen is unchanged either way. Community analysis confirms that Ainu plural is semantic addition rather than obligatory morphological agreement, and that verse can add or omit utar freely for syllable count aynu-corpora Discord (2023–2026) (nukopoli, 2024-11-23) ‹corpus-confirmed›. Number, where grammatically encoded, surfaces on the finite verb through suppletive stem alternation (ek/arki 'come.SG/come.PL', arpa/paye 'go.SG/go.PL') — see Chapter 58 (Verbal Number: Suppletive Stems and the Pluractional -pa). The semantics and animacy conditions of utar, and the transnumeral character of Hokkaido nouns, are in Chapter 41 (Nominal Number: Transnumerality, -utar, and the Locus of Plurality). Pronominal NPs are in Chapter 49 (Personal, Reflexive, and Emphatic Pronouns), and derivation within the NP is in Chapter 40 (Deverbal and Denominal Noun Derivation (Lexical Nominalizer Morphology)) and Chapter 60 (Denominal and Deverbal Verb Derivation).