Nouns

# Nouns

## General rules

- Plural: formed with the suffix -ra (e.g. arrue house → arruera houses).

- Negation: formed with the prefix a- (e.g. happiness → a + happiness).

## Saxon genitive (possession)

Following the pattern of possessive pronouns (*i-* + pronoun root → possessive, e.g. imut = my), the same rule applies to any noun to express possession, particularly between people/animate beings:

> Regola: i- + possessor + possessed

Example: ikett arrue-ne = "the friend's house" (literally "friend's house"). The definiteness suffix (*-ne*) or plural suffix (*-ra*) always applies to the possessed noun, never to the possessor.

This construction coexists with the use of sik (of), which remains reserved for more generic relations — material, type, origin — not necessarily possession: e.g. arrue sik lign ("house of wood"), where there is no true possessor.

For example, "the house of the good friend" can be expressed without the Saxon genitive as arruene sik geru kett-ne (where the prenominal adjective geru precedes the noun kett-ne). If using the Saxon genitive, the possession prefix i- applies to the entire possessor noun phrase (specifically to its first word): igeru kett arrue-ne.

## Nouns derived from verbs (nominalization)

On the model of adjectives derived from verbs (root + -u, e.g. fix to finish → fixu finished), an action/result noun is formed with the suffix -erto:

> Regola: verb root + -erto = action/result noun

Examples: lek (to teach) → lekerto (teaching); trik (to translate) → trikerto (translation).

> Phonetic note: the suffix deliberately ends in a vowel (unlike an earlier proposal with -ert, which, ending in a consonant, would have produced unpronounceable clusters once the article is added, e.g. lekert-ne). With -erto adding the article stays smooth: lekerto-ne = "the teaching".

**Semantic correlation between adjective (*-u*) and noun (*-erto*):**

There is a rigorous logical-semantic correspondence between the pure verb root, the state adjective, and the action noun:

- The pure verb root represents the action itself (e.g., fix = to finish).

- The adjective suffix ***-u*** describes the resulting state or quality related to the action (e.g., fixu = finished).

- The nominal suffix ***-erto*** describes the action itself or its concrete result (e.g., fixerto = end / conclusion).

This rule is productive but not mandatory: not every noun needs to derive from a verb (e.g. dictionary = brosui is a standalone word, not a nominalization); the rule applies only where the meaning justifies it.