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Nouns

Nouns in Jeʂtəra language end almost exclusively in a vowel. A certain number of nouns, mostly loanwords, may unusually end in a consonant; in this case a euphonic vowel, -ə-, is added at the end of noun before the normal declension endings. On rare occasions other vowels, derived from the original language of the loanword, are used in this euphonic role.

Nouns are grouped into two declension classes: the so-called ergative class or class I and inactive class or class II. The ergative class generally includes nouns indicating animate beings, namely capable of intentional motion or action, while the inactive class includes inanimate objects or entities. As a rule, we can sketch out the following scheme:

• class I: human beings, animals, deities
• class II: plants, objects, ideas, feelings, senses, perceptions

A noun is not irreversibly included in one of the two classes, as nouns lack clear morphological marks for each class.

For example, the word sɑño, light, shifts from a class to the other during the history of the language, as the noun ñowe, love, depending on the overall cultural perception of the noun’s animateness degree.

Despite the general lack of morphological markers in the basic forms, being thus unable to distinguish the two classes, the declension patterns depend on which class a noun belongs to.

There are two morphological numbers for almost all nouns, singular and plural.