Lesson 7: Expressing place and location

Expressing spatial and temporal location

First a short recap to the types of nouns in Ainu. Ainu nouns can be divided in two groups, common nouns (that are not considered as places) and locative nouns (relational nouns and "place" nouns). We have learned about common nouns since the first lesson, for example 'cat' or 'flower' are common nouns. Some of the common nouns have a specific affiliative form that can be use to express possession or similar relationships, ku-teke 'my hand' or e-akihi 'your younger brother'. In the previous lesson, I introduced briefly the concept of locative nouns because we needed to know about the different types of nouns to be able to use the case particles and postpositional adverbs that express location or direction with nouns. We used quite restricted vocabulary of place names and the so-called "place" nouns because there was still something missing. We didn't know how to say 'I went to hospital' or 'You are in the house,' because hospital and house are not considered as "places" in Ainu, and so you can't attach the locational case particles/postpositional adverbs directly into them.

To say such things, we need to learn about relational nouns that express spatial and temporal location of things and events. When they are used together with common nouns, the case particles and the postpositional adverbs that express location can be placed after the noun clause. After this lesson, you know how to express spatial location and say things like 'I put the pot on the table,' 'the man sits in front of the house,' 'I walk behind you' or 'the birds fly over the ocean,' and some temporal location expressions, such as 'I will come there after the lunch'.

Some of these relational nouns can be used together with verbs to express the point of time the action happened in relation to another action (before, after, while...), but we will learn how to make expressions like 'I ate after I went back home' or 'you washed your face before going to bed' in a later lesson.

In theory the use of relational nouns is the same as the way the locations are expressed in English, but there are many differences, too. Points of interests for English speakers are probably the way the relational nouns have short and long forms (just like the conceptual and affiliative/possessive forms of some common nouns), and that there is an interesting divide between two words for 'before' and 'after' depending on if there is movement (spatial or temporal) involved or not, and there are more than one word for 'inside', too.

After looking at Ainu relational nouns, we review that there are some nouns—place nouns—that are considered places as they are (but they are not relational nouns) in contrast with the rest of the nouns (common nouns) that are not considered places. Again, we need to know if the noun is considered a place as it is or not when we want to add case particles or postpositional adverbs expressing direction or location after the noun. This is basically just a question of learning vocabulary and I give a list of the place nouns in this section.

This is just for reference for those who are reading about locative nouns in other sources, too. The terminology concerning locative nouns is not quite standardized yet: For example, Bugaeva (2012) doesn't clearly talk about the concept of locative nouns, but uses the terms relational nouns and "place" nouns, which I have adopted as-is. Nagakawa (2022) uses the umbrella term locative nouns but for relational nouns and place nouns he uses different terminology: He calls relational nouns as 'category 1 locative nouns' and place nouns as 'category 2 locative nouns'. Tamura (2000) calls relational nouns locative nouns and doesn't really mention the type of nouns what I call place nouns here. So, what I use here is a kind of combination of the terms used in preceding research.

Relational nouns

The relational nouns express what is the relation between the reference point and the person/thing that is located somewhere around (that is, in relation to) the reference point. So, if the reference point is 'a box' and the thing that exists somewhere in relation to that is 'a cat', you might want to say that 'the cat is inside the box' or 'the cat sits on top of the box' or 'the cat is hiding behind the box.' The words written in italics are expressed in Ainu with relational nouns. Here's a list of the most common relational nouns of Ainu you should learn:

Here's another list with a bit more rare relational nouns.


Short forms and long forms of relational nouns

As you can see there are many forms for some of the relational nouns: some have even six. Now, there are two ways of think about these forms. First is to think about them the same way as the conceptual form and short and long affiliative forms of common nouns. In the case of relational nouns, the first and the shortest form is the conceptual form and the ones after that the affiliative forms. The form(s) with the suffix -ke 'direction of; to the side of' attached to it "expresses the location all the more clearly" (Tamura 2000: 90). However, their use differs from that of conceptual and affiliative forms of common nouns. Even though they have the same kind potential to be independent words as the affiliative forms of common nouns, the two or three (or four or five) long forms indicate concrete locations, not actual possession. This is the reason why some researchers don't use the terms conceptual form and affiliative form when speaking about relational nouns but simply just about short and long forms. I have here adopted the latter way of thinking, so that there is no confusion whether I talk about relational nouns or common nouns with affiliative forms.

So, let's look for example at ka '(on) top of (touching)'. There are four forms that seem to come in pairs: ka and kasi, kasike and kasikehe. The first and the shortest form is the conceptual form, which I call the short form. The three forms after that—kasi, kasike and kasikehe—the affiliative forms or long forms as I call them. The forms are called on this site long form, ke-form and long ke-form respectively.

The generic relational noun or 'the place of' does have ke-form (orke) but it's hardly ever used. The long form, oro, is used instead. Two of the relational nouns in the list above—tom and pok—have only two forms (short and long) listed. This is because their ke-forms or long ke-forms don't appear in any documentation. They probably exist but I didn't list them here just in case.

It's still quite unclear when and why each of the forms should be used and different linguists give different rules of use. As a rule of thumb, either the short form or the long form form can be used together with inanimate things and objects but the short form is strongly preferred. Animate things take most of the times the long form. So, nitek ka 'on (top  of) a tree branch' but umma kasi '(on) top of a horse' or cise sam 'next to the house' but menoko sama 'next to the woman'. The long forms are more independent than the short form, which cannot be used alone without the "positionee". So, if you want to say, for instance, "next to it/him/her", you can't say just sam 'next to; by; near' but you need to use the longer form sama 'next to; by; near it/her/him'. The long ke-forms are especially preferred when the 3rd person subject is omitted, for example osmakehe 'behind her/him' or enkasikehe 'above her/him'.

Tamura (2000: 89) further adds, that the short form is used when "the noun whose relative location is indicated [...] depends upon the locator for a complete concept, and also when accompanied by the nominal prefixes u- 'reciprocally', yay- 'self-', i- 'thing; person', and si- 'self-'." Sato (2008: 165) suggests this might is because the noun located somewhere + relational noun should be treated as one word, a compound word. In contrast, the long form is used when there is a weak relation between the location and the located noun. The long form also puts emphasis on expressing the location clearly. Nagakawa (2022) on the other hand says that there is no difference in the meaning in the different forms. When first and second person markers are attached to relational nouns, the short form/conceptual form is preferred, but it's not wrong to use the longer form either. So... It's quite a mess to figure out which form to use in which situation. Let's look at some examples.

Examples 1

Vocabulary 1

  • sirokanipe (N) — silver drop; silver droplet
    • sirokani (N) — silver
    • pe (N) — juice; sap; liquid
  • ranran (VI) — to fall one after another; raindrops fall drumming
  • piskan (N-REL) — around; surrounding (something)
  • konkanipe (N) — gold drop; golden droplet
    • konkani (N) — gold
  • cupka (N-PLACE) — east
  • wa CASEPRT) — from
  • kamuy (N) — spiritual being; deity
  • ran (VI) — to come down; to go down; to descend; to alight; to come down to river; (tears, drops, etc.) to fall; to drop 
  • iwanitek (N) — branch of Japanese ash
    • iwani (N) — Japanese ash
    • nitek (N) — branch (of a tree)
  • ka (N-REL) — on) top of (touching)
  • orew (VT) —(of a bird/kamuy) to stop to rest somewhere
  • iwa (N) — rocky mountain; hilly area; hill
  • tuysam (N-REL) — next to the slanted edge; close the slanted edge (see the list of prefixes that can be attached to some of the relational nouns below)
  • etanne (VT) — to be long somewhere (PLACE)
  • maw (N-AFF) — breath; breeze; air; flow of air
  • a-nu (EXP) — something is be audible (lit. people hear something)
  • ota (N) — (1) sand (2) sandy beach
  • noski (N-REL) — in the middle of
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to
  • humpe (N) — whale
  • raycepi (N-AFF) — dead body; carcass
  • an (VI) — (1) to exist; to be (somewhere) (2) to live (somewhere)
  • pet (N) — river
  • sam (N-REL) — next to; by; beside; (on) the side; near
  • un (CASEPRT) — to (a place); towards (a place)
  • ekasi (N) — (1) grandpa; grandfather (2) old mister (a polite way to address elderly men)
  • oro (N-REL) — (at) the place of; on; in; inside
  • e- (PM) — (1) 2SG subject marker; 'You do' (2) your (3) 3SG subject marker + 2SG object marker, 'she/he/it/they to you', 'she/he/it/they xxx you'
  • arpa (VI) — to go
  • tan (DET) — this
  • kotan (N-PLACE) — village; settlement
  • toan (DET) — that
  • utur (N-REL) — between (space or time)
  • tuyma (VI STATT) — to be far; to be distant
  • tokapipe (N) — (1) lunch; midday meal (2) noon; around lunch time
  • etok (N-REL) — (1) (in) front of; before (something/someone moving) (2) before (doing something; a point of time)
  • ku- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with a consonant or /i/ sound] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my
  • sinot (VI) — to play; to have fun
  • oka (N-REL) — (1) behind; after (something/someone moving) (2) after (doing something; a point of time)
  • nepki (VI) — to work

The first two examples require probably a bit more explanation. Example sentence 1 is the sakehe 'refrain' of the famous kamuy yukar 'epic of the gods' written down by Ainu and Japanese bilingual speaker Yukie Chiri in the early 1920s. She was the first Ainu to make the effort to put the Ainu oral literature in written form and translate them into Japanese. Her work is published as 'A collection of the Ainu epics of gods' (JPN: アイヌ神謡集/Ainu shinyōshū). You can read the whole collection in Aozora bunko: A collection of the Ainu epics of gods by Yukie Chiri (the explanations are only in Japanese, though). The relational noun piskan 'all around' doesn't seem to have here a noun that is being 'all around': all around where or whom. Yukie Chiri was a Horobetsu variety speaker and in this variety, the person marker is sometimes omitted if it's obvious who the person is. So, the person marker en- is probably omitted or the omitted noun might also be something like 'the place' or 'forest'. So, the silver droplets are falling and falling all around the narrator (the owl) or the place or all around the forest. The verb ranran 'to fall one after another' is a reduplicated version of the verb ran 'to come down; to fall; to drop.' Reduplication usually changes the verb so that the action it represents is repetitive.

We have seen the first verse of the example sentence 2 (cupka wa kamuy ran) already in the previous lesson but now we can also look at the rest of this upopo 'circular canon.' Next, we get to know that the kamuy stops at branch of Japanese ash ('iwanitek ka orew'). The verb orew 'to stop to rest somewhere' is a bit tricky. It's a transitive verb but its object must be a place (or, must have the grammatical feature of being a place), like in this song, the top of the branch. That's why we don't need a case particle there, the place is the object of the verb! There is a small list of other verbs that require a place as (one of) their object(s) at the summary of the lesson. Also intransitive verb rew 'to stop; to have a rest' exists. If that verb was used in this song, the verse would be iwanitek ka ta rew  with the same meaning as the original verse.

The word tuysam 'next to the slanted edge' also needs a little bit of explanation. In the list of relational nouns I gave at the beginning of the lesson, there's the word sam 'next to; by; near'. The word tuysam comes form the prefix tuy 'edge; side' (see the list below) and the relational noun sam, so it means by the slanted edge of something. By the way, the word cupka 'east,' too, consists of two components, cup 'the Sun; the Moon' and one of the relational noun we just learned, ka '(on) top', so 'east' is literally 'on top of the Sun.' This is the reason why the word is considered a place. West is of course the opposite of east and it's in Ainu cuppok 'west', or cup 'the Sun; the Moon' and pok 'bottom; lower part'. Majority of Ainu words are composed from smaller components (morphemes) like this.

There are some prefixes that specify the location even further. We saw one of these, tuysam 'next to the slanted edge; close the slanted edge', in the example sentence 2 above. Otherwise you don't really have to care about these now; they are listed here for just curiosity.

The word sirupaknoski 'the midpoint on the way from a place to another' above has quite complicated structure, but now we actually already know all the components that make up the word! It comes from sir- 'thereabouts', u- 'mutually', pak 'until; to that extent' (we learned this in the last lesson), and noski 'in the middle of.' The components u- and pak actually form a word of their own, upak or upakno 'about the same; both the same; all the same; to the same extent'. So, the word sirupaknoski means literally 'in the middle of the both locations the same.'

OK, now let's go back to our list of the most common relational nouns, because there are some points of interest there that need to be especially discussed. First, there are several words to convey meaning that something is above or over something in Ainu (well, just like in English). Second, there are (mainly) two words for 'inside'. Third, there are separate words for 'in front of; before' and 'behind; after' depending on if the reference point is moving or still. The use of the neutral relational noun or /oro 'at the place of; on; in; inside' needs a lot of special attention, so it's covered in a separate section in this lesson.

Top, over, and above: ka, enka & kurka 

Just like in English, there are several words in Ainu to express that something is/moves/happens over or on top of something. First, the relational noun ka '(on) top of' means that something is on something, touching it. So, it's just like 'on top of' in English. Second, enka 'over; above' means that something is over or above something else, not touching it. The last one, kurka 'spreading over; (in) a wide area over' is means that something is spread or moving here and there above something. It is often used of stars, clouds, etc. spreading across the skies.

Examples 2

Vocabulary 2

  • san (N) — shelf
  • ka (N-REL) — on) top of (touching)
  • un (CASEPRT) — to (a place); towards (a place)
  • tan (DET) — this
  • kanpisos (N) — book
  • k- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with vowels /a/, /e/, /o/ or /u/] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my
  • anu (VT) — to put; to place; to put down from one's hands
  • konru (N) — ice
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to
  • pon horkewpo (N) — small wolf cub
  • hacir (VI) — to fall down; to fall over; to topple
  • tane (ADV) — now
  • nitay (N) — forest; woods; groove; thicket
  • enka (N-REL) — over; above (not touching)
  • cup (N) — the Moon
  • hetuku (VI) — (1) to come out; to rise (of the Sun; the Moon) (2) to appear; to turn up; to come out; to show one's face (3) to be born (4) to sprout; to put forth buds
  • atuy (N) — ocean; sea
  • so (N) — surface
  • kurka (N-REL) — spreading over; (in) a wide area over
  • hankucotca (N) — dragonfly
  • at (VI) — (of insects, fish, etc.) to swarm; to gather in great masses;  to be a lot of

Inside: onnay & tum

In Ainu, there are two words for inside, onnay and tum. Onnay is used when the inside is hollow and there is space around the person/object that is inside something. This goes with cise (houses), tate kenru (mansions), and sem (storage rooms); or different kinds of containers such as suwop (boxes), itanki (bowls), pukuru (bags) or ontaro (barrels), or any other (semi-)closed spaces, such as cip (boats), tomari (inlets/bays) and poru (caves). Onnay can be in most cases replaced by or 'at the place of; on; at; in; inside'.

Tum is used when the person/object is tightly surrounded by something. It is often used together with such words as nitay 'forest', mun '(1) grass (2) garbage; trash; rubbish', upas 'snow', toy 'earth; dirt', yaci 'mud; bog; swamp', una 'ash', and niskur 'cloud'. Tum means also 'among; amongst; out of', so it can be used in such things as 'he was the only one among the people who...', 'the disease spread among the people' or 'out of these clothes, which one do you like the best' (we will not learn these expressions now, though).

There is a special word for being underwater: wor. This is a place noun, so you can attach a location/direction expressing case particle or postpositional adverbs into it (maybe it's a contracted form of wakka or 'in the water'?). By the way, it's ok to say things like pet onnayke 'inside the river' or nay onnayke 'inside the stream'.

Examples 3

Vocabulary 3

  • huci (N) — (1) grandma; grandmother (2) old lady (a polite way to address elderly women)
  • ekasi (N) — (1) grandpa; grandfather (2) old mister (a polite way to address elderly men)
  • cise (N) — house
  • onnay (N-REL) — inside (an empty space or a hollow); indoors
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to
  • mokor (VI) — to sleep
  • cape (N) — cat
  • suwop (N) — box; chest; treasure chest
  • an (VI) — (1) to exist; to be (somewhere) (2) to live (somewhere)
  • ohaw (N) — stew; soup [an Ainu dish sometimes thick as a stew, sometimes more watery like a soup or something between, with various vegetables such as wild vegetables, onion, carrot, and potato and usually either salmon or venison]
  • itanki (N) — bowl
  • na (ADV) — still; still more; (not) yet
  • ponno (ADV) — a little; a bit
  • k- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with vowels /a/, /e/, /o/ or /u/] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my
  • omare (VD) — (1) to insert something into something (PLACE); to put something in something (PLACE); to bury something inside something (PLACE) (2) to place something on something (PLACE); load something on (board of) something (PLACE)
  • cironnup (N) — fox
  • mun (N) — (1) grass; non-edible plant (2) garbage; trash; rubbish
  • tum (N-REL) —  (1) inside (something that is packed with something) (2) among; amongst; out of
  • nuynak (VI) — to hide
  • upas (N) — snow
  • e- (PM) — (1) 2SG subject marker; 'You do' (2) your (3) 3SG subject marker + 2SG object marker, 'she/he/it/they to you', 'she/he/it/they xxx you'
  • apkas (VI) — to walk
  • unarpe (N) — aunt
  • kina (N) — wild vegetables; vegetables; edible plants
  • wor (N-PLACE) — underwater; in the water

Note that the verb omare 'to put something in something' is a ditransitive/3-argument verb and one of its arguments (indirect object) must be a place. So, you don't need to use any case particle or postpositional adverb with this verb, just a noun that is counted as a location or add a relational noun after the nouns that are not deemed as places (like in the examples above). Actually, using one would be a grammatical mistake! There are many verbs like this and you just have to learn one by one how to use each Ainu verb. There is a small list of this kind of verbs in the summary of this lesson.

Sometimes you see the inalienable noun ossi; ossike/oske; ossikehe with the meanings '(1) filling; filling made of …; inside (of food) (2) inside the belly; inside one's belly; in the stomach; in the belly (3) one’s inner thoughts; (inside) one's heart; (inside) one's mind'. It's often used in the meaning of 'one's belly' instead of hon; honi; honihi 'stomach; belly', for example k-ossike arka humi 'my stomach hurts'. The alternative short affiliative form oske seems to be used in more abstract meaning of stomach, that is 'inside of a thing', like in itanki oske 'inside of the bowl' or cip oske 'inside of the boat', but it seems it's not used very often in the Saru variety.

There are at least two more words for inside, iwor and nikor, but I don't how to use them properly, because there are so few usage examples. The iwor/iworke is used when something is inside a thing that has clear borders on sides, like a storage room or underside of a bridge, or is surrounded by clear borders, like the footprints in deep snow (or maybe something like a barrel or a mortar or a bowl, too). Anyway, it seems that this word can always be replaced with onnayke, so maybe it's better to stick with that until more examples of the use of iwor 'inside' appear. The word nikor means 'wrapped inside', like when you wrap an apron around your waist.

'In front ofs' (etok & kotca) and 'behinds' (oka, osmak, os & imakake)

In Ainu, there are two sets of relational nouns for 'in front' and 'behind' depending on if the point of reference is moving or not. So, for example, 'a house' is always staying in the same place and that's why when you say 'in front of house' or 'behind the house', you always use the words kotca '(in) front of (something/someone standing still)' and osmak 'behind (something/someone standing still).' But, if you are talking about a horse, you have to consider if the horse is moving or not and chose the word you use based on that: if the horse is standing still, you would use the same words as with the house, umma kotca 'in front of the horse' and umma osmak 'behind horse', but if the horse is moving, you need to use the words etok '(in) front of; before (something/someone moving) ' and oka 'behind; after (something/someone moving)'.

Etok(o) 'before' and oka(ke) 'after' are also used with time related expressions, since Ainu view time as something that is moving. Actually, it seems oka(ke) is hardly ever used to express spatial location but rather temporal location. For example, if you want to say 'the dog is walking behind me', you would rather use postpositional adverb os 'behind; after; following after' than the relational noun oka(ke). The "positionee" (the point of time or happening) used with etok(o) 'before' and oka(ke) 'after' is a specific point in time (lunch, New Year, me going to be, you being busy, etc.), so they should't be used in expressions like "five years ago" or "after five years". However, you can see this kind of use emerging among the neospeakers of Ainu. Ainu doesn't really have a smooth way to express that kind of meanings, so the new speakers are expanding the ways the existing expressions are use to suit their communication needs.

Another word meaning 'behind' is imak(ake(he)). When used with nouns, it means 'the other side; the opposite side; father away (from); behind'. For example, kotan imak 'the other side of the village', and porke imak 'on the opposite side of the canal'. It can also be used as a self standing word to express temporal relation: imakake ta 'after; afterwards; after that; later on; after some time; at a later time'.

Examples 4

Vocabulary 4

  • yuk (N) — deer
  • citosa (N) — car (loan word from Japanese: jidousha/自動車)
  • etoko (N-REL) — (1) (in) front of; before (something/someone moving) (2) before (doing something; a point of time)
  • un (CASEPRT) — to (a place); towards (a place)
  • hoyupu (VI) — to run; to leap
  • apto (N) — rain
  • etok (N-REL) — (1) (in) front of; before (something/someone moving) (2) before (doing something; a point of time)
  • ta CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to 
  • ku- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with a consonant or /i/ sound] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my 
  • hosipi (VI) — to go back home
  • matkaci (N) — girl
  • cise (N) — house
  • kotca (N-REL) — (in) front of (something/someone standing still)
  • wano (CASEPRT) — from
  • ek (VI) — to come
  • asir pa (N) — new year
    • asir (VI) — to be new
    • pa (N) — year
  • oka (N-REL) — (1) behind; after (something/someone moving) (2) after (doing something; a point of time)
  • Pirautur (PN) — Biratori
  • tup (VI) — to move house; to change residence
  • ni (N) — tree
  • osmak (N-REL) — behind (something/someone standing still)
  • cape (N) — cat
  • reye (VI) — to crawl; to creep
  • seta (N) — dog
  • en- (PM) — 1SG object marker, 'me', 'to me'
  • os (ADV-POSTP) — behind; after
  • apkas (VI) — to walk
  • toan (DET) — that
  • okkayo (N) — man
  • maciya (N) — town; city
  • imakake (N-REL) — (1) the other side; the opposite side; father away (from); behind (2) after; afterwards; after that; later on; after some time; at a later time
  • arpa (VI) — to go

The word citosa 'car' in the example sentence is a loan word from Japanese. The original Japanese word is jidousha (自動車・じどうしゃ) but because the sound inventory of Ainu and Japanese are different, the Ainu pronunciation of the word becomes citosa. The word's use has been document in Suzuko Tamura's dictionary, so I thought it would be fun to use the word here. The Upopoy working group for neologisms has also coined a new word for 'car' in Ainu: inekarip, literally 'four wheels.'

'Behind me' and 'next to her':  Relational nouns and object person markers

If we want to express location of a certain person, such as 'I' or 'you,' we need to attach a person marker to the relational noun. This resembles a lot how we attached the subject person marker to the nouns that have an affiliative form. However, relational nouns require object marker, not the subject. So, if you want to say 'next to me', you need to say en-sama, and if you want to say 'behind you,' you need to say e-osmake. This is not probably a difficult thing to grasp, because English works exactly the same way—'in front of me' and 'behind him'—because the point of view is that of the person who's location is talked about. You can review the singular object person markers in the lesson 5.

As a review, the relational nouns with the 1st and 2nd person markers can be either in their short form or in the long but the short form is more common. For the 3rd person, the long form is mainly used.

Examples 5

Vocabulary 5

  • en- (PM) — 1SG object marker, 'me', 'to me'
  • kurka (N-REL) — spreading over; spreading above; (in) a wide area over
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to 
  • nociw (N) — star
  • mikemike (VI) — to twinkle; to sparkle; to glitter
  • etok (N-REL) — (1) (in) front of; before (something/someone moving) (2) before (doing something; a point of time)
  • seta (N) — dog
  • apkas (VI) — to walk
  • e- (PM) — (1) 2SG subject marker; 'You do' (2) your (3) 3SG subject marker + 2SG object marker, 'she/he/it/they to you', 'she/he/it/they xxx you'
  • osmak (N-REL) — behind (something/someone standing still)
  • cise (N) — house 
  • an (VI) — to exist; to be (somewhere)
  • sam (N-REL) — next to; by; beside; (on) the side; near
  • k- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with vowels /a/, /e/, /o/ or /u/] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my
  • sama (N-REL) — next to; by; beside; (on) the side; near

Generic/neutral relational noun or  (oro) 'at the place of'

We have just learned about how to express the location of something or someone is relation to something or someone else. What if you don't want to say that someone is 'inside the house' but more neutrally just 'in the house' or that something is 'on top of the mountain' but just 'at the mountain'? If you don't want to express the specific spatial or locative relation, you can use the neutral relational noun or/oro 'at the place of; on; at; in; inside'. The form used with a preceding noun is mainly the short form or. Notice that when it's followed by the locative case particle ta 'in; at; to' (like it very often is), the /r/ sound of the resulting or ta is assimilated into the following /t/ and the combo is pronounced as /otta/. This is a very common combo and you will see it many times from this on.

When or(o) is used together with nouns that refer to people, it can mean ambiguously 'to the place where the person is' but more specifically the home of the person. We have actually already seen an example of this kind of use in the example sentence 4 ('pet sam un ekasi oro un e-arpa'). When used together with nouns referring to people, the long form oro is often used. Another use for the long form oro is when the preceding noun is detached from the oro, meaning that there are some other words between the noun and oro (see example sentence 33; if the word cise 'house' was be repeated, the latter part of the example would be tane (nea) cise or un k-arpa 'I will go to (that) house now').

Examples 6

Vocabulary 6

  • isacise (N) — hospital
  • or (N-REL) — (at) the place of; on; in; inside
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to 
  • e- (PM) — (1) 2SG subject marker; 'You do' (2) your (3) 3SG subject marker + 2SG object marker, 'she/he/it/they to you', 'she/he/it/they xxx you'
  • an (VI) — to exist; to be (somewhere) 
  • toan (DET) — that
  • menoko (N) — woman
  • ru (N) — toilet;  bathroom
  • un (CASEPRT) — to (a place); towards (a place)
  • arpa (VI) — to go
  • en- (PM) — 1SG object marker, 'me', 'to me'
  • sine (DET) — one
  • seta (N) — dog
  • iwor (N) — hunting, gathering, and fishing grounds
  • karus kar (EXP) — to pick mushrooms
    • karus (N) — mushroom
    • kar (VT) — (1) to make something; to create something; to manufacture something; to do something (2) to pick something (berries; mushrooms, etc.); to harvest something (3) to peel something; to skin something
  • ku- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with a consonant or /i/ sound] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my 
  • yupo (N-AFF) — (someone's) older brother
  • kor (VT) — to have something; to own something; to possess something 
  • cise (N) — house 
  • toanta (ADV) — there
  • tane (ADV) — now
  • oro (N-REL) — (at) the place of; on; in; inside
  • k- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with vowels /a/, /e/, /o/ or /u/] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my
  • ontaro (N) — barrel; cask; pail; tub; bucket
  • mipi (N-AFF) — (someone's) clothes
  • huraye (VT) — to wash something
  • orowa (ADV/CONJ) — and then; after that
  • tonpuri (N) — bathtub
  • sus (VI) — (1) to bathe; to take a bath (2) to swim (in the sea, ocean, river, etc.); to bathe in the sea; go for a dip in the sea; play by the water

The word iwor 'hunting, gathering, and fishing grounds' used here is not the same as the relational noun iwor 'inside (of something with defined borders)' we talked about earlier! This common noun iwor means the system of dividing the land for different groups of people to use. The Ainu villages, kotan, were built along rivers and because Hokkaido and its vicinities are a mountainous region, the rivers mainly flow in valleys bounded by mountains. The area (usually relatively) close to the village, from the river to the mountains, is where Ainu would go fishing, gather wild vegetables, harvest lumber, and hunt, and essentially get everything they needed for living, and it's called iwor.

The last example shows an important difference between the case particles un 'to (a place); towards (a place)' and ta 'in; at; to'. The English translations 'in the barrel' and 'in the bathtub' look both the same but in Ainu it's important to make the difference. If you say 'ontaro or ta ku-mipi ku-huraye' it means that the action, that is washing the clothes, is done inside the barrel. So, it means something like 'I go inside the barrel and wash my clothes there'.

"Place" nouns

Ainu nouns can be divided in two types of nouns by checking whether they have the grammatical feature of 'place.' This is different from semantic feature of 'place'; the noun might have a meaning that can be considered as a 'place' (eg. mountain, bridge, school, baseball field) but it might still lack the grammatical feature of place. All the relational nouns we just learned have this grammatical feature. In addition, there is a small group of nouns that are not relational nouns but nevertheless have the grammatical feature of 'place'. I call them here place nouns. Together with relational nouns, place nouns can be called locative nouns.

The place nouns differ from common nouns in that you don't have to attach the generic relational noun or 'at the place of; on; at; in; inside' after them when used together with a case particle/postpositional adverb of direction/place, and, as a matter of fact, it's wrong to use them with or . The grammatical function and meaning of or is already part of these nouns. Place nouns don't have short and long form, so they are not relational nouns.

The word kotan 'village' is an exception: it can be used either with or or without it. This seems to go for any Ainu variety, not just the Saru variety we learn here. Another exception in the Saru variety is the word mosir '(1) land; country; realm (2) island (3) world' that can be seen both together with or and without it. Many of the instances with mosir treated as a 'place' have, however, some sort of attribute, for example aynu mosir 'the human world; the lands of Ainu' or kamuy mosir 'the land of kamuy', so it could be that in these cases they are more of a place names than place nouns. The word kanto 'heavens' is similar to mosir in the Saru variety.

The most commonly used place nouns are:

It has already been noted many times that cise 'house' is not considered a place but it needs to be used together with a relational noun. However, the word uni '(someone's) home' is a place (remember that uni doesn't have a conceptual form at all, it's always in its affiliative form), so a case particle/postpositional adverb of direction/place can be directly attached into it. You can read about the reason for this in the next section. There are some pairs of words with similar meaning, of which one is a place noun and the other a common noun. 

You already learned how to use the place nouns in the previous lesson, so I only give a couple of examples here.

Examples 7

Vocabulary 7

  • tokapcup (N) — the Sun
  • cupka (N-PLACE) — east
  • wa (CASEPRT) — from
  • hetuku (VI) — (1) to come out; to rise (of the Sun; the Moon) (2) to appear; to turn up; to come out; to show one's face (3) to be born (4) to sprout; to put forth buds
  • cuppok (N-PLACE) — west
  • un (CASEPRT) — to (a place); towards (a place)
  • ahun (VI) — to enter; to go in(side); to come in(side)
  • hekattar (N PL) — children
  • pis (N-PLACE) — (towards) the beach
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to 
  • sinot (VI) — to play; to have fun

Nouns in their affiliative form as locations

If the noun that is the reference point where something is located in, is in its affiliative form, it's treated as a relational noun. In practice, this means that you don't need to attach the generic relational noun or(o) 'at the place of; on; at; in; inside' to the nouns in their affiliative form. This is probably because the affiliative form makes the noun a highly defined thing. If we know that someone possesses something, that possessed thing is very well-known and there is no ambiguity about what the possessed thing is exactly. Of course, it's also possible to say 'on the top of my head' or 'under my feet' by adding a relational noun after the affiliative form as needed, just don't use or(o).

Examples 8

Family relations are an exception and you have to use or(o) when talking about someone's family members.

Vocabulary 8

  • wakka (N) — water
  • paroho (N-AFF) — (someone's) mouth
  • wa (CASEPRT) — from
  • soyne (VI) — to exit; to go out; to come out
  • haykannup (N) — a middle-sized bear; a middle-sized pot
  • ku- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with a consonant or /i/ sound] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my 
  • kuwe (N-AFF) — (someone's) bow; (someone's) bow trap
  • osma (VT) — to go inside somewhere (PLACE); to plunge into somewhere (PLACE); to rush into  somewhere (PLACE)
  • e- (PM) — (1) 2SG subject marker; 'You do' (2) your (3) 3SG subject marker + 2SG object marker, 'she/he/it/they to you', 'she/he/it/they xxx you' 
  • unihi (N-AFF) — (someone's) home
  • pakno (POSTADV) — until; to; up to
  • sikehe (N-AFF) — (someone's) luggage; baggage
  • rura (VT) — to carry something; to take something along; to bring something along; to transport
  • tapsutu (N-AFF) — (someone's) shoulder(s)
  • ka (N-REL) — (on) top of (touching)
  • cikappo (N) — small bird
  • rew (VI) — (of a bird; kamuy) to stop; to have a rest
  • sapo (N-AFF) — (someone's) older sister
  • oro (N-REL) — (at) the place of; on; in; inside
  • ipe (VT) — to have a meal

The verb osma 'to go inside; to plunge into' in the example sentence 2 is again a verb that requires its object is a place, so when used together with common nouns, or 'at the place of; on; at; in; inside' must be inserted after the noun. In this example, the word ku 'bow; bow trap' is in its affiliative form kuwe, so there is no need for or. 

Expressing 'right' and 'left' in Ainu

This far we have look at how to express so called intrinsic frame of reference with relational nouns with two points of reference—that of the location and the "positionee" or the person/thing that is located somewhere—and learned some words to indicate absolute frame of reference (cardinal points/compass points cupka 'east' and cuppok 'west'). Now let's look at how to add a third point of reference to the frame of reference or how to use the relative frame of reference in Ainu. This basically means the words 'right' and 'left' that depended on both the view point of the viewer and the location of the "positionee".

The words for right and left in Ainu are simon 'right' and harki 'left'. These words are not used alone but together with other words, so they behave more like determiners than independent nouns. For example, if you want to say right hand and left hand, you take the word for hand, tek, and attach the words in front of it: simontek 'right hand' and harkitek 'left hand.' Whether you write simon and harki as separate words (eg. simon tek/harki tek) or together with the following word as one word (eg. simontek/harkitek) seems to be a matter of taste, but it looks like others have been preferring the spelling as one word, so I also use it here.

Similarly, if you want to say that something is on the right or on the left, you can't use simon and harki alone, but you need to attach them to the relational noun sam 'side; beside; next to' we just learned before. The resulting words are simoysam 'the right side' and harkisam 'the left side' and you can use them just like any other relational noun. Notice that the word for 'the right side' has an assimilation on the border of the two words: the final /n/ of simon assimilates into the following /s/ of sam and becomes /y/. Because I chose to write the words determined by simon and harki as single word compounds, I write that assimilation explicitly, so that there is no confusion about the pronunciation of the word.

There are also special set of right/left words that are used together with certain case particles/postpositional adverbs:

Generally speaking, there are very few examples how to use right and left in Ainu.

Examples 9

Vocabulary 9

  • ku- (PM) — [Used in front of words starting with a consonant or /i/ sound] (1) the first person singular subject marker; 'I do' (2) my 
  • kor (VT) — to have something; to own something; to possess something
  • cise (N) — house
  • simoysam (N-REL) — right side; the right hand side
  • ta (CASEPRT) — (1) at; in; (2) (with verbs of movement) to  
  • an (VI) — to exist; to be (somewhere)
  • mataki (N-AFF) —  (someone's) younger sister
  • harkiteke (N-AFF) — (someone's) left hand
  • arka (VI) — to hurt
  • siri (EV) — looks (like)

Summary: Expressing spatial and temporal location

Here is a (long) summary of this (long) lesson:

The use of or/oro 'at the place of; on; in; inside':

This was again a lesson packed full with new concepts to English speakers and again a lot of new vocabulary. (I gave up restricting the new vocabulary already after the first examples section.)

Next we will do something completely different and forget about nouns and learn about how to link two clauses together with conjunctions instead.

Created on 2023/2/10, Latest update on 2025/2/5