NOUN:
Definition
Nouns are a part of speech typically denoting a person, place, thing, animal or idea.
We distinguish common nouns (NOUN) from proper nouns and pronouns.
While some derivational suffixes only form nouns (-īh for nomina abstracta), most nouns can be used as adjectives by conversion. Deverbal nouns often inherited syntactic features from the verbal base.
In Middle Persian, nouns can be marked for plural, which is facultative if plurality is indicated elsewhere (e.g. by a quantifier, the agreement marker on the verb, or the context). The unmarked form is used for generic reference. It is not possible to mark the singular except for the use of the numeral “one”, which has an enclitic variant that can at times be interpreted as a specifier.
Compounding is frequent in Middle Persian and can be complex.
Examples
- kanīzag “girl”
- draxt “tree”
- hukirbīh “beauty” (lit. good-body-ness)
- wizōyišn “examination”
- rāhnimūdār “guide (lit. way-shower)”
- waxšabarburdārīh “transmission of divine speech (lit. message-over-carrier-ness)”
Border cases
The clausal noun phrase is embedded like a noun and can trigger nominal syntax but it can also take its dependents like a verb (see nmod).
NOUN in other languages: [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [ca] [cs] [cy] [da] [el] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [eu] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [grc] [hbo] [hu] [hy] [hyw] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [kpv] [ky] [myv] [naq] [nmf] [no] [oge] [pal] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urj] [xcl] [xmf] [yue] [zh]