Quantifiers and Modifiers

This section talks about two broad classes of words that further specify the denotation of a noun phrase. Though they are linked in this similar function, as the following will show, they do have different syntaxes. This section is organized as follows:

Numerals and other Quantifiers

Numerals

The number terms in Skerre from one to twenty are quinary (based on five), so the numbers from one to five are the basic terms. They are given below:

Numeral Skerre
1 yat
2 has
3 siya
4 ree
5 yan

The number terms from six to ten are all compounds of the above, with a basic term for ten.

Numeral Skerre   Literal Translation
6 yan-yat five-one
7 yan-has five-two
8 yan-si five-three
9 yan-re five-four
10 war ten

Eleven to twenty continues much like 6 to 10, using compounds and basic terms for fifteen and twenty.

Numeral Skerre   Literal Translation
11 war-yat ten-one
12 war-has ten-two
13 war-si ten-three
14 war-re ten-four
15 set fifteen
16 set-yat fifteen-one
17 set-has fifteen-two
18 set-si fifteen-three
19 set-re fifteen-four
20 ari twenty

Above 20, the system turns vigesimal (based on twenty). Instead of changing every five units, the base units change every twenty. Counting proceeds as follows:

Numeral Skerre   Literal Translation
21 ari-yat twenty-one
...    
25 ari-yan twenty-five
...    
30 ari-war twenty-ten
...    
39 ari-set-re twenty-fifteen-four
...    
40 hasari two-twenties
...    
60 siyari three-twenties
...    
80 reyari four-twenties
...    
99 reyari-set-re four-twenties fifteen-four
100 yanari five-twenties

Though this system could be extended higher (and occasionally, it is), native speakers generally stop around 100. For those few Skerre who need higher numbers, they are borrowed from Skarnathi, Northlander, or other trade language. However, there is the term, terek, which means uncountable hundreds or thousands that can be used to refer to high numbers.

Other Quantifiers

In addition to the specific counting terms above, there are several less specific quantifiers. These are listed below:

Skerre English
yiket all, every
quee many
antan a lot
haron half
hok some
atsat several (a distributive)
reyir a quarter
kii few
was each

The Syntax of Quantifiers

Any of the numeral or less-specific quantifiers can be used alone, as if they were just plain nouns, as in:

Ewor a siya.
PFV-go ABS three
Three (of them) went.

However, it is more common to find them quantifying a noun. In that case, the quantifier is still preceded by a syntactic marker, like a regular common noun, but it is also followed by the genitive marker, i, and the noun being quantified over, always in the singular, as in the following examples:

E’okin-wo a yan i kinta.
PFV-see-TR=1PL.NOM ABS five GEN bird
We saw five birds.

Eratin-ti a yiket i yere wakosehan.
PFV-capture-TR=3PL.NOM ABS all GEN dog DENOM-NEG-home
They captured all the stray dogs.

Attributive Modifiers

As noted previously, attributive modifiers appear after the noun. This includes a heterogeneous set of categories, but all of them semantically modify the noun.

Verbal "Adjectives"

Many "adjectives" are formally verbs; when they are predicated they take verbal morphology. However, when they are attributive, modifying nouns, they are invariant, as shown below.

a yere quiko
ABS dog wet
the wet dog

Nominal "Adjectives"

A small number of "adjectives" are nominal in nature. This includes the colors, interrogative adjectives, demonstratives (see below), and a few deictic adjectives, like tetsa, last and kis, previous.

Normally nominal "adjectives" appear after the noun, uninflected, as in the following:

a sakir aska
ABS sky blue
the blue sky

However, they can optionally take nominal inflection, as in:

a saasakir aa’aska
ABS PL~sky PL~blue
the blue skies

Members of this latter class also can be used as a nouns, as in:

Sehes a aska.
be.dangerous ABS blue
The blue (one) is dangerous.

They also behave differently from verbal "adjectives" when predicated — see the "verbless" constructions page.

Important Subclasses of Nominal "Adjectives"

Demonstratives

A subclass of this nominal "adjective" class are the demonstratives. In Skerre, the demonstratives have a three-way distinction: tir, ter, and tar. Tir means close to me (this), ter close to you (that here), and tar close to him/her/it (that yonder), in either a real or metaphorical sense. Note that this is extent of the article-like modifiers, since Skerre does not have words corresponding to English the or a.

Color Terms

Skerre is a 6 basic color-term language. The basic color terms are conventionally translated as following:

Color Term Translation
hiyos white
sir black
ayon red
tiya green
yisen yellow
aska blue

Their range of coverage is approximated in the chart below.

hiyos ayon yisen tiya aska   sir  
 
 
  		                                                                                               

Of course, there are other non-basic color terms, formed using the various word formation processes in the noun formation section, such as ayonir, pink (lit. little red) and yisen-ayon, orange (lit. yellow-red). Compounds are also made with hesa, light and ros, dark.

Attributive Prepositional Phrases

Finally, the postnominal modifier position can also be filled with a prepositional phrase, as in:

a yere ni tos
ABS dog COM bone
the dog with the bone

Forward to Section 12: Pronouns
Back to Section 10: Possession
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