Chapter 7: Nouns: Plurals, People Words, and Word-Building

Starting point#

A short description of market day in Tecpán.

Count the kinds of nouns in this paragraph. Some carry a plural ending (winaqi', ixoqi', achi'a', ak'wala', k'ayinela', tikonela', ajk'ayi'), some are plural without any ending (saqmolo' "eggs"), one takes the particle taq (taq kej), and several are built with prefixes or suffixes that tell you what a person does or where something happens (k'ayinel, tikonel, ajq'ij, aj Chiq'a'l, k'ayb'äl, ruk'u'x tinamit, rochoch Ajaw). This chapter takes them apart.

How it works#

Two kinds of nouns: those that mark plural and those that do not#

English marks almost every noun for plural. Kaqchikel splits nouns into two groups. A minority of nouns take a plural suffix, -a' or -i'. The majority have no plural form at all: jun wuj "one book", oxi' wuj "three books", and the noun wuj does not change. Plurality is understood from the number, from the context, or, when the speaker wants to stress it, from the particle taq placed before the noun.

Which nouns take the suffix? The rule is about animacy, a scale of how "alive" and how person-like something is in the eyes of the language. Almost every noun for a person takes a plural suffix, and so do some animals, mostly wild ones. Most other animals, and nearly all plants and objects, do not.

Here is one plural taken apart:

ixoq-i'
woman-PL
"women"

The everyday person nouns you need, with their plurals:

Notice what the suffix does to the stem vowel: winäq > winaqi', ixöq > ixoqi', kumätz > kumatzi' "snakes", umül > umuli' "rabbits". This is the rule from Chapter 1: a lax vowel lives only in a final syllable, so a suffix forces it to tense. A few plurals are irregular and must simply be learned: achin > achi'a' (the n drops and a glottal stop appears), ala' > alab'oni'.

Animals that take a plural suffix are typically wild creatures that figure in stories and beliefs; the domestic animals of the household compound (dogs, cats, chickens, horses, cattle, sheep) do not:

The line is not fixed. Some speakers say ch'oyi' "mice", others taq ch'oy, and the same person may call the stars ch'umila' when thinking of them as beings tied to human destinies and taq ch'umil when talking astronomy. In effect, the suffix says "I am treating these as beings."

The particle taq#

Taq is a free word placed in front of a noun to make plurality explicit. It is the standard way to pluralize nouns that have no suffix, and it can also be added to nouns that do have one:

Nkik'ayij taq chakäch.
They sell baskets.

K'o k'iy taq wuj pa tijob'äl.
There are many books in the school.

E k'o k'iy taq tijoxela' wawe'.
There are lots of students here.

Taq is optional when a number is present (oxi' wuj and oxi' taq wuj both mean "three books"), and it is usually left out with mass nouns like ixim "corn" or ya' "water". Its most frequent home is inside the pointing frames of Chapter 6: re taq wuj re' "these books".

Agreement: what counts as plural#

Plurality shows up not only on the noun but on the words that agree with it. A plural subject of a verbless predicate takes the Set B plural e (Chapter 3): e k'o, e tijonela', e jeb'ël. Verbs have their own plural marker, which Chapter 10 introduces. Nouns that carry a plural suffix always trigger this agreement:

E k'o oxi' ak'wala' pa jay.
There are three children in the house.

Ri tijoxela' e k'o pa tijob'äl.
The students are at school.

Nouns that take no suffix often keep singular agreement even when several are meant: K'o oxi' wuj pa ch'atal "There are three books on the table." Use plural agreement with people and with animals that pluralize; with objects, singular is always safe.

People by what they do: the suffix -el#

The most productive way to name a person by occupation is to add -el to a verb stem. The stem is usually the verb's object-less form, which Chapter 17 explains; for now, just notice that it ends in -an, -on, -in or -un. The plural is always -ela', because these are people.

One family deserves a closer look. Tijonel "teacher" (one who teaches) and tijoxel "student" (one who is taught) are both built on the verb -tijoj "teach, study"; add tijob'äl "school" and tijonik "class, lesson" from later in this chapter, and you have four nouns from one root.

Ma Kawoq jun tikonel; xta Ixchel jun k'ayinel.
Kawoq is a farmer; Ixchel is a vendor.

E k'o k'iy k'ayinela' pa k'ayb'äl wakami.
There are many vendors in the market today.

A Tz'ikin jun tijonel pa Chiq'a'l.
Tz'ikin is a teacher in Comalapa.

People by trade: the prefix aj-#

The prefix aj- means roughly "person of, one associated with". Before a place name, written as a separate word, it gives origin, as you learned in Chapter 2: aj Iximche' "someone from Tecpán", aj wawe' "a local". Attached to a common noun, written as one word, it names a trade or role through the thing the person deals with:

The ajq'ij, the daykeeper, keeps the 260-day count (Chapter 26) and performs ceremonies; the word is literally "one of the days". Ajch'ame'y is "one of the staff", because the carved staff is the emblem of office in the traditional town hierarchy. Despite its shape, ajsamaj does not mean "worker" but is another name for the daykeeper; "worker" is samajel.

Plurals of aj- nouns are mixed. Some take the suffix: ajq'ija', ajk'ayi', ajtija', ajch'ameya'. Others are simply preceded by e or a number: e ajtz'ib' "they are writers", e ajyuq' "they are shepherds", ka'i' ajkem "two weavers". When in doubt, the e strategy is always understood.

K'o jun ajq'ij pa qatinamit.
There is a daykeeper in our town.

E ajk'ayi' la ka'i' achi'a' la'.
Those two men are merchants.

Men, women, and the Ix- of women's names#

Kaqchikel nouns have no grammatical gender. Where sex matters, separate words do the work: achin "man", ixöq "woman", ala' "young man, boy", xtän "girl, young woman", q'opoj "maiden", as the titles of Chapter 2 do before names.

Traditional women's names, and the names of female figures in the old texts, begin with Ix-: Ixchel, Ixk'at, Ixq'anil, Ixkem, Ixmukane'. The same element opens ixöq "woman". You need not derive anything with it; just recognize that a name starting with Ix- is a woman's name, which is why xta Ixchel is natural and a Ixchel is not.

Tools and places: the suffix -b'äl#

Add -b'äl to a verb stem and you get the instrument for doing the action or the place where it is done. This is one of the most productive devices in the language, and it is also where new technology gets its names.

Notice two things. A linking vowel often appears after a consonant-final stem (etz'an-i-b'äl, war-a-b'äl). And these are the vowel-shift nouns of Chapter 4: the lax ä of -b'äl tenses when the noun is possessed, so tz'ib'ab'äl becomes nutz'ib'ab'al "my pen" and tijob'äl becomes qatijob'al "our school". That clear tense a is one of the most audible differences between a learner and a native speaker in these words.

New things get -b'äl names too, like tewb'äl "refrigerator", from tew "cold". So do a few abstractions: nimab'äl k'u'x "religion, faith" (literally "instrument for believing, of the heart") and uxlanib'äl k'u'x "peace" ("resting place of the heart").

Actions as nouns: the suffix -ik#

A verb can be turned into a noun naming the action or its product with -ik (some towns, and the standard spelling of some words, use -ïk). The base is again usually the stem in -n:

These nouns also tense their vowel when possessed: nutijonik "my class", ruk'utunik "his question", rusipanik "her gift". English often needs a gerund to translate them: ütz ri tijonik "the teaching is good".

Some common action words are plain roots rather than derivations: samaj "work" is a noun on its own (rusamaj "his work, his job"), and kem "weaving, loom" is the root behind -kem "to weave" and ajkem "weaver".

Qualities as nouns: the suffixes -il and -al#

Adjectives and some nouns take -il or -al to form abstract nouns: "hardness" from "hard", "wealth" from "rich". Most of these are used possessed, since a quality is normally the quality of something:

This is the same -il/-al you met with inherent possession in Chapter 4 (nuwujil "my identity papers", nuch'umilal "my destiny"), and it does the same job there: it names the essence rather than the object.

Do not confuse it with the -al of kinship terms: nimal is "older same-sex sibling", not "bigness".

Compounds: nouns from two nouns#

Kaqchikel builds compounds in several ways.

"Noun of noun" compounds. The first noun carries the third-person prefix ru-/r- and the second is its possessor, exactly like "the X of Y" in Chapter 4. Many body parts, foods and places are named this way:

To possess one of these, put the possessor's prefix on the second noun, since that noun is the true possessor inside the compound: ruwi' nuq'a' "my finger", literally "its-tip of my-hand".

Fused compounds. Some compounds have squeezed into one word, often with sound changes: aq'awinäq "raccoon" (aq'a' night + winäq person: "night person"), lemowäch "eyeglasses" (lemow glass + wäch eyes), tetata' "town elder" (te' mother + tata' father).

Pairs naming a whole. Two complementary nouns side by side name the category that contains them: te'ej tata'aj "mother father" = parents; kajulew "sky earth" = the universe.

Nouns used as adjectives. As in English "worker bee", a noun can stand in front of another and describe it: samajel achin "a hard-working man", aq'omab'äl jay "hospital" (curing-place house), warab'äl jay "hotel" (sleeping-place house). The adjective kaxlan "foreign, Spanish" works the same way for things that arrived with the Europeans: kaxlan wäy "bread" (foreign tortilla), kaxlan ik "bell pepper" (foreign chile), kaxlan ixim "wheat" (foreign corn).

Loanwords and new words#

Kaqchikel borrows freely from Spanish (kape "coffee", kamixa "shirt", wakx "cow"), and borrowed nouns behave like native ones: nukamixa "my shirt", taq wakx "cows". Speakers also build new words from native parts, like kematz'ib' "computer", from weaving and writing, and Iximulew "Guatemala", the land of corn; Chapter 31 tells that story.

Small and dear: ti, xti, ch'uti'n#

Kaqchikel has no diminutive suffix like Spanish -ito. Instead a small adjective goes before the noun: ch'uti'n (also ch'utin) "small", and its reduced forms xti and ti, which add affection as well as smallness. Jun ti ne'y is "a little baby" said tenderly; jun ti rijiläj achin is "a dear little old man"; xti tzij is "a little word". The plural counterpart is xtäq, a reduced form of ch'utäq, the plural of ch'uti'n: xtäq ak'wala' "the little children". Use ti and xti when you would use "little" warmly in English, and ko'öl when you mean physically small (Chapter 8).

Reading: Tz'ikin's school#

A second short text, this time about a school.

Patterns at a glance#

Plural

People words

Derived nouns

Compounds: ru-N N (ruwi' q'ab'aj); fused (aq'awinäq); pairs (te'ej tata'aj); noun as modifier (samajel achin, kaxlan wäy).

Diminutive: ti / xti / ch'uti'n before the noun (jun ti ne'y).

Vocabulary#

Reference: more nouns from this chapter#

The chapter uses these as examples of its patterns. Hover them for a gloss, and learn the ones you need.

Usage and dialect notes#

Do not over-pluralize. The commonest learner error is to put taq or a suffix everywhere. Speakers leave most nouns unmarked when a number or the context makes plurality obvious: oxi' wuj, not oxi' wuji', is the neutral way to say "three books", and plain oxi' wuj is more usual than oxi' taq wuj.

Suffix choice. The authors' newer grammar gives a rule of thumb: stems whose last vowel is i take -a' (tz'ikina', achi'a', ajq'ija', utiwa'), and other stems take -i' after tensing the vowel (winaqi', ixoqi', masati', xtani'). -el nouns always take -ela'. A few plurals ignore the tendency (ak'wala', b'eyoma', teja'), so it is still wise to learn the plural with the word.

Variation in animal plurals. The suffix/no-suffix line for animals differs by town and by speaker. If someone uses taq where you expected a suffix, or the reverse, neither of you is wrong.

aj before a vowel. When aj- is prefixed to a vowel-initial noun, a glottal stop is written between them: aj'ik'.

ajtij / tijonel, ajb'ix / b'ixanel. Several occupations have both an aj- form and an -el form. They are synonyms; the -el form is the safer default.

kaxlan. Besides "foreign" it is used for "Spaniard" and, in some contexts, for non-indigenous Guatemalans; kaxlani' "the Spaniards" is its plural. Use it freely as a modifier for introduced things (kaxlan wäy), but be aware of its social meaning when applied to people.

Loanword spelling. Borrowed words are respelled in the Kaqchikel alphabet (kape, kamixa, koton); the Spanish spelling is not used in Kaqchikel text.

Looking back and ahead#

Possession in Chapter 4, the frames of Chapter 6 and this chapter together give you the whole noun: how it marks plural, names people, and grows out of verbs, adjectives and other nouns. Chapter 8 puts adjectives in front of these nouns, and Chapter 17 explains the verb stems behind tijonel, tijoxel and tijonik.