Nouns

Nouns in Pre-Kaddesol decline for gender, number, and case and divide into eight nominal classes.

The declensions form from a series of prefixes that originate in an archaic series of articles, the history of which is too distant for reliable reconstructions. At some point before Pre-Kaddesol these articles agglutinated onto the nominal root. Though distant, it is sufficiently recent as to not disrupt the stress system, which continues to emphasize the root over grammatical prefixes.

Gender

Pre-Kaddesol has four genders: masculine, feminine, bestial, and inanimate. The first three derive from an older animate gender, which can still assert itself through the masculine and Class III bestial genders.

Early Pre-Kaddesol featured two genders: animate and inanimate. The animate was formed by pairing a nasal consonant with a-stem case markers. The inanimate was formed by pairing a plosive consonant with i-stem case markers.

The initial fracture in the animate gender derives from the need to distinguish human nouns from animal nouns. This was accomplished through the use of m for human and n for animal. The na- prefix of class III was further refined to produce nja- and nga- in classes IV and V.

Feminine nouns derive from two sources: inanimate nouns that refer to feminine things and women. The former produce class VI, which has the irregular i-stem case vowel in singular and dual. The latter produced Class VII, which derives from a reanalysis of Class V, resulting in alternate dual and plural prefix.

Class IX and X derive from inanimate nouns belonging to classes II and VIII. The reanalysis of gender that produces irregularity in most nouns in these resulted in a shift from i-stem to a-stem, while retaining the initial consonants.

Pre-Kaddesol roots sometimes suggest an earlier form of gender, with a tendency to favor initial consonants in animate roots and initial vowels in inanimate roots. But, the gender of these roots is so old that it cannot be used as a reliable indicator for gender at the stage of Pre-Kaddesol .

Number

Pre-Kaddesol has three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. The morphological expression of number in nouns is shown by the choice of prefix, which can usually be seen in the initial consonant. Pre-Kaddesol has a tendency to use voiceless initials in singular and dual and voiced consonants with the same place and manner of articulation in the plural.

Case

Pre-Kaddesol has four morphological cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. The specific paradigms for these cases varies based on vowel stem.

Early stages of Pre-Kaddesol relied on syntax to differentiate between nominative and accusative, but this degraded over time leading to the introduction of distinct vowel sounds for each.

Accusative and dative are not only as the objective cases, but with prepositions can perform locative, allative, and ablative functions.

Genitive provides possession but with a preposition can function as an instrumentation.

The nominative and accusative with a preposition can function as a vocative.