San nem

The Ba kom word for “noun” is san nem, “name word”.

Ba Kom nouns have no singular or plural forms. The listener can use context to tell whether a noun is singular or plural.
Some words that indicate singular are the number nan "one", and the singular pronouns o "he/she", si "you (one person)", and mi "I".
Some words that indicate plural are numbers greater than one, the pronoun im "some/several", and the pronouns om "they", sim "you (plural)", and mim "we".

Ti dit san | Word order

Descriptive phrases come after the nouns that they modify.
Nouns may be modified by other nouns, by verb phrases (with the particle i), by prepositional phrases, or by pronouns. They cannot be modified by adverbs.

The order of a noun phrase is:

[noun] — [demonstrative pronoun] — [possessive pronoun] — [i + verb phrase] — [prepositional phrase]

When a noun is modified by a stative verb but not a pronoun, then the particle i may be dropped.

• wat i nin
  [seed] [relativizer] [little]
  wat nin
  [seed] [little]
  "a little seed"

• yayom i nau
  [helper] [relativizer] [new]
  yayom nau
  [helper] [new]
  "a new assistant"

But if a noun is modified by both a pronoun and a verb, then the particle i must be used before the verb.

• wat wa i nin
  [seed] [this] [relativizer] [little]
  "this little seed"

• lem wa mi i nin
  [light] [this] [my] [relativizer] [little]
  "this little light of mine"

• yayom si i nau
  [helper] [you] [relativizer] [new]
  "your new assistant"

• pim ya i pon son
  [smile] [that] [relativizer] [full of] [self]
  "that smug smile"

• bol im ya i lim ta cam
  [flower] [several] [that] [relativizer] [pretty] [in] [garden]
  "those pretty flowers in the garden"

Ke ban | Animacy

All nouns are either animate or inanimate. This determines what third-person pronouns can be used for a noun.
Animate nouns take the animate pronouns o and om. Inanimate nouns take the inanimate pronouns wa and ya, or more often, no pronoun.

Animate nouns include:
All living things, including people, plants, and animals; landmasses, hills and mountains, and large stones; large bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, and seas; storms; celestial objects; and supernatural beings.

Inanimate nouns include:
Man-made objects; abstract concepts; incomplete pieces of larger entities; substances; pools, small ponds, and clouds.

Thus, tik is animate when it means "tree", but inanimate when it means "wood"; ul is animate when it means "sea", but inanimate when it means "water" as a substance; bol is animate when it means "flowering plant", and inanimate when it means "flower" as part of a plant; similarly, ip "leaf" is inanimate because leaves are parts of trees.

Here are some examples:

• Kan nawi ta ya, mu o lim na?
  [look at] [maple] [at] [there], [question] [he/she] [pretty] [not]
  "Look at that maple tree, isn't it pretty?"

• Det nan la nit tan i o, ya yam com o weng.
  [squirrel] [one] [aspect] [sit on] [branch] [of] [he/she]
  [that] [appear] [too much for] [he/she] [delicate]
  "A squirrel is sitting on its branch, it [the branch] looks too delicate for it [the squirrel]."

• So gol kit lin wa cui o, so sang i o lin no.
  [do] [hammer] [peg] [flow] [this] [pierce] [he/she]
  [make] [blood] [of] [he/she] [flow] [out]
  "Hammer this tap into it, it [the tap] will drain its [the maple's] sap."

Compound nouns

A compound noun is a noun that is made up of several parts, but is treated as an inseparable whole.

Yapa nicen | Indirect objects

An "indirect object" is a person or thing that is indirectly affected by an action. Often it marks the recipient of something. A sentence usually has no indirect object unless it has a direct object, whether stated or implied.

In Ba kom, indirect objects are shown with the verb wo.
Wo can ususally be translated as "for". It means "give something to", "be for the benefit of", "be in favor of", or "have as a motivation or reason".

Wo can come before the main verb or after the direct object, with no change in meaning. Placing it after the direct object is the default word order, but placing it before the verb is useful for long sentences.

• Din ya wo mi.
  [give] [that] [to] [I]
  Wo mi din ya.
  [to] [I] [give] [that]
  "Give that to me."

• Mi de san mo wo o?
  [I] [should] [say] [what] [to] [he/she]
  Mi de wo o san mo?
  [I] [should] [to] [he/she] [say] [what]
  "What should I say to him/her?"

• O lik ba losi wo mi.
  [he/she] [teach] [language] [Russian] [to] [I]
  O wo mi lik ba losi.
  [he/she] [to] [I] [teach] [language] [Russian]
  "He/she teaches me Russian."

• Bin yem mi wo mi din sel i bon i o cal.
  [son/daughter] [girl] [I]
  [to] [I] [give] [image] [of] [family]
  [relativizer] [she] [paint/draw]
  "My daughter gave me a picture of our family that she painted."

• Wo mi san tem i sim pin cum um.
  [to] [I] [tell] [story] [of] [you] [get to] [know] [mutually]
  "Tell me the story of how you met each other."

• Pang mang nikom lo wo kun den din ko to i yan po yet.
  [organization] [production] [private]
  [aspect] [to] [fellowship] [people]
  [give] [thing] [every]
  [relativizer] [one] [can] [expect]
  "Capitalist organization has given all that could be expected of it to society."

Mado | Reduplication

Reduplication means repeating a word twice. Reduplicated nouns are written with an apostrophe.

A reduplicated noun can have one of several meanings.

Generalization

Reduplication can have the meaning of "and things like that", or "or something", or "something like". For example:

• pok'pok "cups/bowls and things like that" = "dishes"

• dang'dang "tables and things like that" = "furniture"

• kin'kin "a dog or something" = "a pet", "pets"

If one doesn't know the word for something, one can refer to it by reduplicating the word for something else that's similar.
For example, if one does not know the word kit, "nail, peg", one can say nik'nik, "something like a horn/spike".

Plurality

A reduplicated noun can refer to a particular, definite group of something. This can be thought of as a definite plural, i.e. "the [noun]s", "all those [noun]s", "all these [noun]s".
It does not refer to an indefinite or hypothetical group, and it does not refer to all of a given thing in existence.

For example, from tixol “book”, one derives tixol'tixol, “the books”, referring perhaps to all of the books in a library, or all of the books on a bookshelf.
This does not mean “all books ever written” or "books" in general. That would be tixol to, or tixol.

Similarly, ko'ko means “all of those/these things”, while ko to means “all things”.

Diminutive

A diminutive or endearing word can be formed by reduplicating the first consonant of a word with the vowel i, and then adding the prefix a-.
If the root word already has the a- prefix, then it is moved to the beginning of the new word.

• kin "dog" → aki'kin "puppy"

• miu "cat" → ami'miu "kitty"

• bam "parent" → abi'bam "mommy, daddy"

• amu "grandma" → ami'mu "granny"

Augmentative

An augmentative can be formed like the diminutive, but with the vowel a. This can be translated as something like "big ol'".

• pen "child" → apa'pen "big kid"

• mut "mouse, rat" → ama'mut "big ol' rat"

Deverbal Nouns

Most nouns are deverbal, which means that they are derived from verbs. The meaning of a deverbal noun depends on the type of verb that it comes from.

If a noun is derived from a stative verb, it means "that which is X".

• bo "good" ← "to be good"

• xu "heat" ← "to be hot"

• bi "organism" ← "to be alive"

• aun "evening" ← "to be late"

• tun "shade" ← "to be dark"

• nai "vicinity" ← "to be near"

• yut "nature, wilderness" ← "to be wild"

• mil "sugar" ← "to be sweet"

• kal "treasure" ← "to be precious"

• baun "hero" ← "to be brave"

The word ke indicates a state of being.

• ke bo "goodness"

• ke baun "bravery"

• ke bi "life"

• ke kal "value"

• ke tun "darkness"

If a noun is derived from an active verb, it usually refers to the action itself, or to its object.

• sem "group, gathering" ← "to gather"

• ban "motion, movement" ← "to move"

• yat "leadership" ← "to lead"

• nak "illness" ← "to get sick"

• lem "light" ← "to shine"

• pul "bag, parcel, package" ← "to wrap"

• sak "remnant" ← "to leave behind"

• san "word" ← "to say"

• kun "accompaniment, company" ← "to be with"

The prefix ya- indicates the subject.

• yayat "leader"

• yanak "invalid"

• yakun "friend, companion"