Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
These may be used syntactically as normal nouns with abstract meanings. Like English gerunds and infinitives, they may take direct objects and be inflected as other verbs, but they cannot be predicates (they do not complete a sentence like verbs and copulatives). The class prefix is ho-and comes from original Proto-Bantu *ku-.
Nouns are also created by converting verbs and adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading). Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs frog, milk) or as concrete and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs embarrassment, prejudice). [4]
Noun class 1 refers to mass nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns. examples: вода 'water', любовь 'love' Noun class 2 refers to items with which the eye can focus on and must be non-active examples: дом 'house', школа 'school' Noun class 3 refers to non-humans that are active. examples: рыба 'fish', чайка 'seagull'
Nouns indicating persons (except those in class 1a) may use either the prefix or the suffix [sɪt͡ɬʼʊhʊlʊ] setloholo ('grandchild') → [sɪt͡ɬʼʊhʊlʊŋ̩] setloholong, [hʊsɪt͡ɬʼʊhʊlʊ] ho setloholo; Many nouns, such as place names and nouns indicating times are used without any modification [lɪɬɑbulɑ] lehlabula ('summer')
Abstract nouns, on the other hand, refer to abstract objects: ideas or concepts (justice, anger, solubility, duration). Some nouns have both concrete and abstract meanings: art usually refers to something abstract ("Art is important in human culture"), but it can also refer to a concrete item ("I put my daughter's art up on the fridge").
The feminine ending is thought to have developed from a collective/abstract suffix *-h₂ that also gave rise to the neuter collective. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] The existence of combined collective and abstract grammatical forms can be seen in English words such as youth = "the young people (collective)" or "young age (abstract)".
For example within nouns there are two sub classes, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. The concrete nouns include people, plants, animals, materials and objects while the abstract nouns refer to concepts such as qualities, actions, and processes. According to the nature of the noun, they are categorized into different semantic classes.
Exceptions include proper nouns, which typically are not translated, and kinship terms, which may be too complex to translate. Proper nouns/names may simply be repeated in the gloss, or may be replaced with a placeholder such as "(name. F)" or "PN(F)" (for a female name). For kinship glosses, see the dedicated section below for a list of ...