Knowledge base · Part VI — Word Classes and Nominal Morphology · this topic as a network
35. The Formal / Defective Noun Set (ruwe, hawe, siri, humi, hi, pe, kur)
What is the formal/defective noun set in Hokkaido Ainu and how does it function in nominalization and evidentiality?
Overview and terminology
What distinguishes formal nouns from other noun subclasses in Hokkaido Ainu?
Formal nouns (keishiki meishi) are a subclass of nouns with weak independence that are placed after verbs or adnominals to form noun phrases, and they are sometimes called 'noun particles' (Nakagawa 2024: 257). They occur in short and long forms (Murasaki 2025: 103). Satō (2008a) drew a terminological distinction between complementizers, which he called meishikaji 'nominalizers', and the head nouns of relative clauses, which he reserved the label keishiki-meishi 'formal nouns' for (reported in Nakagawa 2024: 508). Among the items that function as nominalizers are ruwe, siri, hawe, and pe (Refsing 1986: 231). Tamura (1988a) characterizes takup as an intermediate category between nouns, noun particles, adverbial particles, and suffixes (reported in Nakagawa 2024: 329).
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The inventory
What are the two sets of formal nouns in Hokkaido Ainu and what do they cover?
The inventory of representative formal nouns includes p ~ pe 'thing', hi 'matter, thing, time, place', hike 'direction of ~', katu 'manner, state', uske 'place', usi(ke) 'time, place', kur 'person', and utar '-plural' (Nakagawa 2024: 258). While usi is widely used across dialects as the formal noun meaning 'place', uske is also commonly used in the Saru, Chitose, and Shizunai dialects (Nakagawa 2024: 258).
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Shared diagnostics
What diagnostic properties identify formal nouns in Hokkaido Ainu?
Complete clauses can only modify a restricted set of semantically bleached formal nouns—including uske, usi, hi, hike, ruwe, hawe, siri, and humi—to form noun phrases (Nakagawa 2024: 386). In Hokkaido dialects, a verb phrase can be followed by the formal nouns hi and pe (Bugaeva 2022: 20.6). Pronouns and formal nouns do not take person affixes (Nakagawa 2022: 14.3). The formal nouns p ~ pe and hi nominalize the entire preceding verb phrase rather than merely attaching to the immediately preceding element, and should therefore be considered clitics rather than affixes (Nakagawa 2022: 14.3). The formal noun hi can only be modified by a verb phrase, p can be modified by a verb phrase or a prenominal but not by a noun phrase, and utar can be modified by verb phrases, noun phrases, or prenominals (Nakagawa 2022: 14.3, Nakagawa 2024: 258). Formal nouns are more concrete in meaning than nominalizers but have low independence; like regular nouns they can be modified by relative clauses, but usually cannot occur alone (Satō 2008: 180). The formal noun kur has low syntactic independence and cannot be used alone, requiring a preceding verb or adnominal (Satō 2008: 18). The item takup possesses properties close to a formal noun, as evidenced by its affiliative form takupi matching nominal affiliative morphology (Nakagawa 2024: 328), though takup cannot follow an adverbial phrase, rendering combinations such as *ukouturuke ta takup impossible (Nakagawa 2024: 328). When attached to a verb phrase, patek is typically verbalized with ki 'do', whereas takup is frequently verbalized with ne 'be' (Nakagawa 2024: 328).
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The p ~ pe nominalizer
What two readings does the nominalizer p/pe produce in Hokkaido Ainu?
The formal noun meaning 'thing' surfaces as p after vowels and pe after consonants (Satō 2008: 19, 180). Ruwe and pe are semantically neutral dummy nominalizers (Refsing 1986: 231). As a nominalizer, ruwe may only refer to abstract matters, whereas pe may in other contexts refer to concrete things or impolitely to persons (Refsing 1986: 231). The formal noun pe can mean either 'thing' or 'person', but when applied to humans rather than kur, it often carries a derogatory connotation (Satō 2008: 19, 180). The formal nouns p ~ pe can also be used as conjunctional particles to connect clauses without serving as an argument of the subsequent clause (Nakagawa 2024: 516). The expression pe ne 'it is the case that' is often used in expressions loaded with strong emotion (Satō 2008: 324).
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hi and the other general formal nouns
What kind of nominalization does the formal noun hi perform in Hokkaido Ainu?
The formal nouns used in sentence-final phrases are basically the four items ruwe, siri, hawe, and humi (Nakagawa 2024: 391). When used as formal nouns in their affiliative forms, ruwe means 'fact/that', siri means 'visible appearance', hawe means 'voice', and humi means 'sound/(non-visual sensory) feeling', and they function to form a noun phrase from a completed sentence (Nakagawa 2024: 391). Etymologically, these are the affiliative forms of the common nouns ru 'path, track', sir 'appearance, weather, land', haw 'voice', and hum 'sound, feeling', respectively (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 391). In many dialects sentence-final phrases are formed with the possessed forms ruwe and hawe, but in the Tokachi dialect the concept forms ru and haw are used instead (Nakagawa 2024: 110). Chitose dialect siri corresponds to Tokachi dialect sir, and Chitose dialect ruwe corresponds to Tokachi dialect ru (Takahashi 2022: 18.6). Nouns that can serve as complementizers are restricted to a subset of formal nouns, primarily hi, katu, p ~ pe, uske, usi, ruwe, siri, hawe, and humi (Nakagawa 2024: 508); formal nouns with abstract meanings can function as complementizers (Nakagawa 2024: 509). The complementizer uske 'place' is used mainly in the Saru, Chitose, and Shizunai dialects, while usi 'place' is used across all of Hokkaido including those regions (Nakagawa 2024: 508). The sentence-final phrase uses of ruwe, siri, hawe, and humi can be regarded as one type of complementizer use (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 509). Noun phrases headed by hi 'time/place', uske (Saru, Chitose, Shizunai), or usi(ke) (all Hokkaido) are always treated as grammatical places (Nakagawa 2024: 458). The formal noun hi is treated as 〈location〉 when interpreted as denoting 'time' or 'place' (Nakagawa 2022: 14.4). The bound noun hi has minimal concrete meaning, can be translated as 'thing' or 'time', and functions to nominalize a whole clause (Satō 2008: 168, Refsing 1986: 233). In the Tokachi and Ishikari dialects, the form ihi is used alongside hi, but it is almost restricted to the expression ene an ihi 'that it is thus' (Nakagawa 2024: 258). Clauses ending in a formal noun plus ne construction cannot form a noun phrase except through nominalization with the formal noun hi (Nakagawa 2024: 378). The generic noun hi can function as a subject or a possessor (reported in Nam 2021). In the Tokachi dialect, subordinate clauses formed with the formal nouns ru, haw, and hi can undergo insubordination, but other formal nouns cannot, because insubordination is restricted to forms denoting indirect evidence (reported in Hirosawa 2026). The formal noun hike, meaning 'one of two or more things' or 'side/direction', can also function like a conjunctional particle setting up the preceding clause as a premise for the situation described in the following clause (Nakagawa 2024: 516, Satō 2008: 180, 357). Satō (2008) proposes that hike in the example a-kouk hike paraparak might alternatively be interpreted as a formal noun rather than a conjunctive particle (proposed in Satō 2008: 53). The formal noun usi means 'place' or 'time', and unlike the locational noun or 'place', it can be adnominally modified by a verb phrase in a relative clause construction (Satō 2008: 181). The combination 'formal noun + un' is used as an affirmative response to a polar question (Nakagawa 2024: 396), and nothing—including final particles, formal nouns, and conjunctive particles—ever follows bare formal nouns or 'formal noun + un' in sentence-final position (Nakagawa 2024: 397). Polar interrogatives can be formed by ending with ruwe, siri, hawe, or humi without a copula (Nakagawa 2024: 395), while wh-questions using these nominalizers obligatorily place the existential verb an after the nominalizer (Satō 2008: 136). The combination 'formal noun + an' is also used to form exclamative sentences, though an is not necessarily obligatory in exclamatives as it is in wh-questions (Satō 2008: 136, 137). Bare formal nouns used with interrogative words often question the very situation itself rather than asking for specific content (Nakagawa 2024: 395), and bare formal nouns in sentence-final position are also used to express strong emotions such as surprise, admiration, or pain (Nakagawa 2024: 396). Exclamatory clauses are expressed by sentence-final phrases ending in ruwe, hawe, siri, or humi, and such sentences do not only express admiration but can at times take on an ironic or rhetorical meaning (Nakagawa 2024: 426). Sentence-final phrases using siri in particular can express ongoing situations in the present, because siri expresses visual information and denotes an action taking place before one's eyes (Nakagawa 2024: 435). The combination ruwe ne serves as an explanatory construction corresponding to Japanese no da (Satō 2008: 290; reported in Hirosawa 2026). One use of ruwe ne presents information that the speaker judges the addressee is likely unaware of as new information in the discourse, closely resembling the interpersonal-mood use of Japanese noda (Hirosawa 2026), and Hirosawa (2026) asserts that previous research has not described this new-information marking function (Hirosawa 2026). Instances of ruwe ne analyzed as having a summarizing function can alternatively be analyzed as presenting new information (Hirosawa 2026). The comparison 'formal noun + an' versus 'formal noun + ne' shows that the former has extremely low verbality; when used with interrogative meaning, it is followed only by a small number of elements such as hi or the interrogative final particle ya, and cannot be connected to a subsequent sentence with a conjunctive particle (Nakagawa 2024: 395). The formal noun humi can be used in sentence-final expressions to express a sensation such as disgust or horror (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 401), and humi as means 'there is a sound' but is also used to mean 'it feels like / there is a feeling that' (Satō 2008: 241). The phrase siri ka isam is used to mean 'there is no sign/indication of' (Satō 2008: 179). The nominalizers katu and siri are both used after verbs describing a situation or condition (Refsing 1986: 261), and siri may be used after action verbs to mean the 'way of action' when followed by a descriptive expression (Refsing 1986: 262); siri appears in a number of sentence-final forms (Refsing 1986: 262). Tamura (1996) treats one construction as sir iki, but Satō proposes siri iki in view of the usage of the nominalizer siri (proposed in Satō 2008: 57). The nominalizers pokon and kotom indicate that the preceding verb describes how things appear to the speaker, not necessarily how they really are (Refsing 1986: 262), and pokon often indicates that the appearance of things is due to pretence on the part of the agent (Refsing 1986: 262). The phrase hawe ene an i takes a speech verb before it and expresses the meaning 'the contents of what was said were as follows' (Satō 2008: 360). Satō (2008) proposes that ukokimatek hawe can be analyzed as a content clause formed by the nominalizer hawe (proposed in Satō 2008: 298). The adverb ene means 'thus, this way' on its own but often combines with a formal noun to form a manner noun clause corresponding to Japanese 'how one should do...' (Satō 2008: 294). In the Saru and Chitose dialects, orano and orowano are frequently combined with the formal noun hi in the forms hi orano and hi orowano, expressing 'since' or 'after' (Nakagawa 2024: 517). The expletives ko and konna appear primarily after formal nouns such as ru, haw, sir, and hum, followed by onomatopoeic/mimetic-based verbs, to adjust meter without adding meaning (Nakagawa 2024: 593).
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kur and kuni: person and purpose nominals
What semantic roles do the formal nouns kur and kuni express in Hokkaido Ainu?
The noun kur means 'man, human being' and is synchronically not used as an endonym by the Ainu (Janhunen 2022: 2.2); it is mainly used for men (Satō 2008: 18). Kur functions as a formal noun meaning 'person' (Satō 2008: 180), and because it has low syntactic independence it cannot be used alone and must be preceded by a verb or an adnominal (Satō 2008: 18). The suffix -kur, related to the noun kuru 'person', extensively derives nominal expressions from phrases and clauses, forming both idiomatic expressions and structures corresponding to English relative clauses headed by 'person' (Shibatani 1990: 32).
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The sensory-evidential quartet
What are the syntactic requirements of the sensory-evidential formal nouns in Hokkaido Ainu?
The formal noun ruwe is used to state a fact with certainty (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936; reported in Hirosawa 2026), and Hirosawa (2026) proposes that it references sensory information or knowledge that the speaker has processed internally (proposed in Hirosawa 2026). There is, however, a disagreement about its evidential scope: Hirosawa (2026) asserts that ruwe can express direct experience or direct evidence (Hirosawa 2026), while another position reported by Hirosawa (2026) holds that ruwe is restricted to matters indirectly recognized through comprehension (reported in Hirosawa 2026). According to Tang (2020), in first-person uses of evidential formal nouns, ruwe functions to explain matters experienced by the speaker (reported in Hirosawa 2026). Hirosawa (2026) notes that hawe and ruwe can alternate in virtually identical sentences, suggesting that ruwe originally refers to information sources obtained through the five senses (Hirosawa 2026). The formal noun humi indicates subjective judgment based on perception (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). The formal noun hawe is used to state hearsay or report what was heard (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936, Refsing 1986: 231, 261); hawe exists as an independent noun meaning 'voice', and as a nominalizer it may only refer to something heard or said (Refsing 1986: 231). Siri originally means 'appearance' and as a nominalizer may only refer to something that can be seen (Refsing 1986: 231); it is used to state what is seen visually and can also express an adversative sense 'even though / while' (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). Ruwe forms part of various sentence-final expressions denoting question or assertion (Refsing 1986: 261), and the formal noun ruwe can be placed clause-finally to form a polite interrogative sentence (Satō 2008: 100, 120). The main nominalizers used in interrogatives are ruwe, hawe, siri, and humi, which are the affiliative forms of the nouns ru 'trace', haw 'voice', sir 'appearance', and hum 'sound' respectively (Satō 2008: 134).
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Grammaticalization: from lexical noun to formal noun
What is the grammaticalization path from lexical noun to formal noun in the sensory-evidential set of Hokkaido Ainu?
The possessed forms ruwe, hawe, siri, and humi are common nouns that grammaticalized to lose part of their original lexical meaning and function like formal nouns in sentence-final phrases (Nakagawa 2024: 259). Etymologically, they are the affiliative forms of the common nouns ru 'path, track', sir 'appearance, weather, land', haw 'voice', and hum 'sound, feeling', respectively (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 391). Hirosawa (2026) proposes that the evidential formal noun ruwe derives from the possessed (affiliative) form of the common noun ru 'road, track, trace' (proposed in Hirosawa 2026), and reports that according to Chiri (1936), ruwe is the concrete form of the noun ru 'road/track' and shifted into a factual marker through meanings such as 'there are traces of...' or 'there is the fact that...' (reported in Hirosawa 2026). The bound nouns pe/p 'thing/person', hike 'side', and hi/i 'place/time' have developed grammaticalized functions as derivational suffixes and subordinating conjunctions (Bugaeva 2012: 470–471). The ordinary noun utar 'companion, relative' has grammaticalized into a formal noun functioning as a pluralizer (Nakagawa 2022: 14.3). The noun katu means 'manner', 'appearance', or 'state' (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). The form sittapan, which likely arose from the conceptual form of the formal noun sir combining with tapan (sir+tapan > sittapan), is particularly characteristic of the Ishikari dialect (Nakagawa 2024: 402).
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