Nouns & Pronouns

Nouns are words that name people, places, things, and ideas, and they are the backbone of any language's vocabulary. In designing your conlang's noun system, you need to make decisions about several key properties: number (how you indicate singular, plural, or other quantities), gender or noun class (how nouns are categorized grammatically), case (how the noun's role in a sentence is marked), and definiteness (how you indicate whether a noun is specific or general). These choices interact with each other and with the rest of your grammar. A language with extensive case marking may not need strict word order. A language with noun classes may require adjectives and verbs to agree with each noun's class. Think of these properties as knobs you can turn up or down to achieve the kind of language you want.

Most languages distinguish at least singular and plural, but many go further. Arabic has a dual number (for exactly two), some languages have a trial (for exactly three), and a few have a paucal (for a small number). You might also consider whether plural marking is mandatory or optional. In Japanese, nouns are not marked for number at all -- context tells you whether 'neko' means one cat or many cats. Gender or noun class systems categorize nouns into groups that affect agreement patterns. European languages often have two or three genders (masculine, feminine, sometimes neuter), but Bantu languages like Swahili have up to 18 noun classes based on categories like human, animal, plant, abstract, liquid, and paired objects. Your gender system does not have to be based on biological sex -- it could be based on animacy, shape, size, or any other semantic feature you find interesting.