Old Quomonak Nouns

Old Quomonak is generally fairly conservative grammatically (and phonologically): it retains the noun system of PN pretty much intact. Again, this is the template:

[possession]-[prenoun]-[stem]-[obviation/plurality]-[locative, vocative, instrumental]-[possession].

Widespread coda and occasionally initial changes have led to the development of two stems for many nouns. The citation form is usually standalone noun, noun possessed by 1sg argument:

kʷē, na-hkʷīy-ek 'woman'
ese, naw-esey-ek 'dog'
mohkʷoh, na-mokʷohk-et 'cloud'

The possessive prefixes are straightforward. Use the consonants in parentheses before a following vowel.

1	na(w)-
2	θa(w)-
3 PROX	ē(n)-
3 OBV	ō(w)-

Prenouns work pretty much the same way as in Proto-Nahtak: ese 'dog' -> ōšiy-ese 'large dog', θalahka 'hill' -> sōwa-salahka 'tall hill'.

Obviation and plurality markers differ in animate and inanimate nouns (most notably in that inanimates can't take obviation marking).

For inanimates, the plural suffix is -ka, attached to the possessed stem. If the possessed stem ends in /k/, just add -a. If it ends in another consonant, the ending is -ihka.

For animates, we have this nice little table:

	Singular	Plural
Proximate	-Ø	-ēk#/-ēht-
Obviative	-ā/-āw-	-(a)ta/-(a)ta-

Note that there are separate endings when the obviation/plurality suffix is word-final as opposed to when it isn't.

Case Markers

It feels kind of like cheating to call these "case markers", since there are only three of them and they don't cover core case functions, just a few oblique functions. However.




Finally, possessive suffixes appear: