Knowledge base · Part VI — Word Classes and Nominal Morphology · this topic as a network
34. Nominal Subclasses and Obligatorily-Possessed (Bound) Nouns
What noun subclasses exist in the language, and which nouns cannot appear without a possessor?
Because a noun phrase fills one of the argument slots required by a verb, an independent noun phrase has an arity of -1 (Nakagawa 2024: 261).
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The four noun subclasses
How are nouns divided into four subclasses based on independent use and relative clause head ability?
Nouns in Ainu are classified on morphosyntactic grounds into subclasses, with different scholars identifying slightly different inventories: Bugaeva recognises three major subclasses — common nouns, relational nouns, and bound nouns — while Nakagawa identifies four subclasses — common nouns, locative nouns, pronouns, and formal nouns — distinguished by five features: inflection, possessive case person affixes, independence, possible modifiers, and locativity (Bugaeva 2012: 470–471, Nakagawa 2022: 14.3, Nakagawa 2024: 117). Bugaeva further distinguishes ordinary nouns from locative nouns (Bugaeva 2022: 1.1), a distinction also recognised in Karafuto dialects, where many nouns in both classes have both a non-specific conceptual form and a specific, concrete affiliative form (Tangiku 2022: 9.4). Both ordinary nouns and locative nouns change their forms through the attachment of suffixes to their basic forms (Nakagawa 2022: 14.3). Common nouns, long forms of positional nouns, and pronouns can independently serve as the subject or object of a verb (Nakagawa 2024: 214). Ainu nouns have no grammatical gender, only natural sex (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). For animals, sexes are distinguished by prefixing pinne for male and matne for female (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). Just as ainu means 'human' in contrast to kamui but 'man' in contrast to menoko, the element -kur means 'male' in contrast to -mat (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936); in Hidaka dialects, for instance, the words for male spider and female spider are ka-erikin-kur and ka-erikin-mat respectively (Kindaichi & Chiri 1936). In Sakhalin dialects, nouns placed after other nouns to qualify them, often expressing an indefinite plural, are called adnominal post-words and are also used as independent nouns (Murasaki 2025: 102).
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Common nouns: concept form and affiliative form
What two forms do common nouns have, and what is the function of each?
Ordinary nouns have two forms: the conceptual form and the affiliative form (Nakagawa 2022: 14.7). The conceptual form can constitute a noun phrase by itself and thus has an arity of -1, whereas the affiliative form requires an antecedent and thus has an arity of 0 (Nakagawa 2024: 262). All ordinary nouns have an underlying affiliative form that surfaces when semantic conditions such as a material-product relationship are met (Nakagawa 2022: 14.4). The conceptual form of ordinary nouns generally does not possess the syntactic function of 'location' (Nakagawa 2022: 14.7). General nouns can function as sentence subject or object and may be followed by case postpositions (Refsing 1986: 75); they are independent free forms that may perform the role of sentence subject by themselves (Refsing 1986: 81). General nouns may be preceded by adnouns and adnominalized sentences, and some may take noun suffixes and/or noun prefixes (Refsing 1986: 75); only general nouns may be modified by adnouns or take noun prefixes, pronominal prefixes, or noun suffixes (Refsing 1986: 274). General nouns are unmarked for gender (Refsing 1986: 81). Quantity nouns can all appear in apposition to the noun they modify or function as pure nouns, but among them only poronno and ponno occur in adnominal position (Refsing 1986). The noun topa means 'group, flock, school, herd' and can be used for both animals and humans (Satō 2008: 289).
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Inalienable nouns and the bound class
Which semantic fields favor the inalienable construction for possessed nouns?
Bound nouns cannot occur independently and must be modified by a determiner, a noun, or a relative clause (Bugaeva 2012: 470–471, Bugaeva 2015: 47). Obligatorily possessed nouns almost never occur without possessive morphology (Bugaeva, Nichols & Bickel 2022); without an overt personal prefix, the default interpretation is that the possessor is third person (Bugaeva 2022: 1.5). Ainu uses unspecified possessor and antipassive morphology as non-possessed noun morphology, allowing an obligatorily possessed noun to be used without a specified or overt possessor (Bugaeva, Nichols & Bickel 2022). Certain bound nouns, including kur, utar, us(i)(ke)(he), pe/p, hike, and hi/i, occur more frequently as relative clause heads than common nouns (Bugaeva 2015: 47). Ainu inalienable nouns include body part terms and their semantic extensions, including bodily secretions, physical strength, disposition, home, and clothing (Bugaeva 2022: 1.5); by contrast, si, osoma 'excrement', and okuyma 'urine' are encoded as alienably possessed nouns (Bugaeva 2022: 1.5). In riddles, obligatorily possessed nouns are cited with the fourth-person/first-person plural inclusive transitive subject prefix a- rather than in their conceptual form (Bugaeva 2022: 1.5). Bound noun roots such as me- 'cold' and mon- 'hand' have an arity of -1 in the calculation of compound word arity, despite not being independent words (Nakagawa 2024: 263). The noun ruye or ruyehe only exists in the affiliative form (Refsing 1986: 87). In Sakhalin, nineteenth-century Japanese records preserve names of ethnic groups derived from the Ainu element -kur, meaning 'people' (Shiraishi & Tangiku 2022: 7.2).
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Kinship terms: two grammatical classes
How do kinship terms split into two grammatical classes regarding possession?
Kinship terms split into two grammatical classes with respect to possession. Some kinship terms, such as unu-hu 'his mother', ona-ha 'his father', po-ho 'child/son', and sa-ha 'his elder sister', are encoded as inalienable nouns (Bugaeva 2022: 1.5). Other kinship terms, including totto 'mother', hapo 'father/mother', acapo 'uncle', unarpe 'aunt', huci 'grandmother', and ekasi 'grandfather', are encoded as alienably possessed nouns (Bugaeva 2022: 1.5).
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Locational and relational nouns
What properties define the subclass of locative nouns expressing spatial and temporal relations?
Locative nouns in Ainu have a basic form and long forms (Nakagawa 2022: 14.7). Locational nouns express relative spatial relations such as 'above', 'below', 'front', and 'back', and are distinguished from common nouns by four properties: requiring a preceding reference noun in the basic form, forming long forms differently from affiliative forms, taking objective personal affixes, and always functioning syntactically as 'location' (Nakagawa 2024: 238). The basic form of a locational noun cannot form a noun phrase or sentence element on its own without a preceding noun that specifies its reference point (Nakagawa 2024: 239), and locative nouns are always treated syntactically as 'location' (Nakagawa 2022: 14.7).
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Type-1 and Type-2 locative nouns
How are locative nouns divided into two types based on antecedent requirements?
Locative nouns are divided into two types based on whether their basic forms require an antecedent noun phrase (Nakagawa 2022: 14.7). Nakagawa proposes that Type 1 locational nouns cannot stand independently at sentence initial in their basic form, whereas Type 2 locational nouns can (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 241). Type 1 locative nouns have an arity of 0 when preceded by an antecedent, and an arity of -1 when occurring without an antecedent in their long form, as with ka, tum, and tom (Nakagawa 2024: 262). Type 2 locative nouns likewise have an arity of 0 when an antecedent is present and an arity of -1 when no antecedent is present, as with soy, rik, and wor (Nakagawa 2024: 262).
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Common vs proper nouns
How do proper nouns differ from common nouns grammatically in this language?
Nakagawa asserts that in Ainu there is no grammatical distinction between proper nouns and common nouns (Nakagawa 2024: 233), while Refsing observes that proper names behave syntactically like general nouns but, unlike general nouns, never take plural suffixes (Refsing 1986). Proper names are only in extremely rare cases modified by an adnoun or an adnominal clause (Refsing 1986: 75), and they can take no prefixes or suffixes (Refsing 1986: 75). In Hokkaido dialects, proper nouns do not take affiliative forms, whereas in Sakhalin dialects people's names possess affiliative forms (Nakagawa 2022: 14.4). To avoid sharing names with others, Ainu personal names tended to be long, and most recorded names consist of two or more words, such as subject + verb or verb + noun (Nakagawa 2024: 234). In Ainu, nicknames are called pon re, literally 'little name' (Nakagawa 2024: 236). Names such as Okikurmi or Samayunkur in Hokkaido, and Yayresuupo or Paarionnay in Sakhalin, are considered proper nouns because each denotes a unique individual (Nakagawa 2024: 237). Nakagawa proposes that in western Hokkaido heroic epics the protagonist Poyyaunpe, an epithet meaning 'young land person' that corresponds to a nickname (pon re), can be treated as a proper noun (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 237). Nakagawa further proposes that expressions with the structure 'place name + un + kur/mat', such as Iyoci un kur or Kanesanta un mat, function within narratives as proper names denoting specific individuals rather than regional groups (proposed in Nakagawa 2024: 237).
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Pronouns and formal nouns in the subclass system
How do personal pronouns differ from common nouns in their syntactic behavior?
Pronouns and formal nouns do not show inflectional changes in form, unlike common nouns (Nakagawa 2022: 14.3). Pronouns other than personal pronouns, formal nouns, and bound nominal roots each have an arity of -1, as illustrated by forms such as nep, tanpe, sinep, hi, p, pe, uske, me-, and nu- (Nakagawa 2024: 262).
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