Nuosu/Grammar

Part of Speech

1. Open
   • Noun
     • lyp<n> ↔ lyp - seed
   • Verb
     • lyp<n> ↔ lyp - sow
   • Adjective
     • jjip<n> ↔ jjip - full
2. Semi-closed
   • Determiner, adverb, conjunction
3. Closed
   • Pronoun, particle, auxiliary, complementizer

Morphological Analysis

1. Size prefixes

• The diminutive prefixes i and the augmentative prefix a can be prefixed to a set of adjectival roots generating pairs of antonyms.
  • sho<n><pl> ↔ ix sho** -iet (big)
  • -a (small)
  • ax (small)

2. mu- prefix 'place, sky, stream'

3. Nominalizer suffixes

• -lu (action)
• -jjux (quality or extent)
• -tie (manner)

4. Adjectivizer suffixes

• -sa
• -we

5. Reduplicaiton

• Nouns
• Cl
• Pronouns
• Verbs/Adjectives reduplicate to form alternative question

6.Color Ideophones

7. Gender/Age suffixes

• Three gender and one age suffixes attached to animal names: - bat (male), -bu (male), -mop (female) and -sse (young).