Nouns don't have many inflexions in Old Tupi. However, they still have some, and this page is intended to give an overview of nouns in Old Tupi.
Nouns are divided into possessable nouns and non-possessable nouns. All possessable nouns can be turned into adjectives by removing -a at its end (if it has one):
And as its name suggests, it can also be possessed by a possessive pronoun or another noun in a genitive clause (possessor-possession):
However, non-possessable, which are generally natural elements, such as plants, animals, regions, objects, etc., cannot be possessed nor be turned into adjectives. Such phrases like the examples below are ungrammatical:
For sentences like "my tree" or "our tatu". It would rather say a more paraphrastic clause such as pindoba xe remityma, "the tree I planted"/"the tree planted by me", or tatu oré rembiara, "the tatu we captured"/"the tatu captured by us".
Generally, the genitive and possessive clauses are simple: the possessor precedes the possession. The possessor can be the possessive pronoun or another noun.
However, some words called "Pluriform nouns" change their forms according to the type of possessor. These forms are called "relational forms" and consist of the stem from the pluriform noun gaining different prefixes according to the possessor.
They are different classes of nouns. Class I for the non-pluriform nouns, as the word ygara, "canoe". i.e., ygara doesn't inflected as shown before. Class II are for the pluriform nouns, which are divided into sub-classes. These sub-classes differentiate from each other by their prefixes in each form.
| Classes | I | IIa | IIb | IIc | IId | IIe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absolute form | ∅- | t- | t- | ∅- | ∅- | s- |
| R1 form | ∅- | r- | r- | r- | ra/re- | r- |
| R2 form | i ∅- | s- | t- | s- | sa/se- | s- |
| R3 form | o/ogû ∅- | ogû ∅- | ogû ∅- | ogû ∅- | ogû a/e- | ogû ∅- |
| Classes | I | IIa | IIb | IIc | IId | IIe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absolute form | ygara | tera | tura | u'uba | kuîa / pé | sapó |
| "canoe" | "name" | "comming" | "arrow" | "cuia" / "way" | "root" | |
| R1 form | xe ygara | xe rera | xe rura | xe ru'uba | xe rekuîa / rapé | xe rapó |
| "my canoe" | "my name" | "my comming" | "my arrow" | "my cuia" / "my way" | "my root" | |
| R2 form | i ygara | sera | tura | su'uba | sekuîa / sapé | sapó |
| "its canoe" | "its name" | "its coming" | "its arrow" | "its cuia" / "its way" | "its root" | |
| R3 form | ogû ygara | ogû era | ogû ura | ogû u'uba | ogû ekuîa / ogû apé | ogû apó |
| "its own canoe" | "its own name" | "its own comming" | "its own arrow" | "its own cuia" / "its own way" | "its own root" |
Some nouns in the absolute form start with the nasal m or the prenasal mb, but in the other relational forms, they start with p-. These words are pó(mbó) - "hand", poranduba(moranduba) - "asking", papasaba(mbapasaba) - "number", pokaba(mokaba) - fire weapon.
| mb | m | |
|---|---|---|
| Absolute form | mbó | moranduba |
| "hand" | "asking" | |
| R1 form | xe pó | xe poranduba |
| "my hand" | "my asking" | |
| R2 form | i pó | i poranduba |
| "its hand" | "its asking" | |
| R3 form | o pó | o poranduba |
| "its own hand" | "its own asking" |
Some words are non-possessible, so they never would be pluriform. But there is also the extreme opposite: words that are obligatory possessable, most of the time, they are kinship terms. Tuba "father" and sy "mother" are some examples. We always have to specify whose father or mother is. But never say "father" and "mother" alone. Tuba, by the way, is a pluriform noun from Class IIb. So even if we say "tuba" alone, it also means "his father".
Some words, when in their absolute form, i.e., when we don't specify whose the thing is, get the implicit meaning "of human", "human ...". Generally, body parts or organic things. For example, o'o (Class IIa):
îagûara ro'o (jaguar meat) so'o (his meat) to'o (meat, human flesh)
Other words that work like o'o are :
But:
Here the t- prefix represents the absolute form, but has nothing to do with humans, for obvious reasons.
In dictionaries such as the Dicionario de Tupi Antigo by Eduardo de Almeida Navarro, you won't find this classification. You will find the word in its non-prefixed form and between brackets their prefixes, Absolute prefix first, R2 prefix second. For example :
When modifying a noun with an adjective, the noun comes first and the adjective merges with its noun.
Rules for merging are: if a noun ends in an unstressed syllable, the last syllable disappears. Except if the word is a monosyllabic word. Otherwise, the adjective simply joins to the noun.
For some adjectives, those who end in a consonant, we add -a, since the new word is now a noun.
These adjectives can be used with a copula, to form sentences like "the chief is good": morubixaba i katu. But some adjectives in English are actually suffixes. As -(')ĩ "small" and -gûasú/-usu "big".
They exist as adjectives: mirĩ "small" and eburusu "great". But when merging with a noun, it's more common to use their suffixes.
Old Tupi doesn't have verbal tenses but nominal tenses, which are made by adding suffixes. The main are -rama/-nama, the future suffix, and -pûera/mbûera, the past suffix.
As Old Tupi doesn't have verbal tenses, it can use these nominal suffixes to express the idea of tense instead, mainly in relative clauses since verbs in relative clauses are nominalized anyway, as in: Îagûara xe rembîarapûera, "The jaguar I captured"/"The jaguar which was captured by me". Aîkwab se'orama, "I know he will die"/"I know his future death".
The suffixes can also be mixed:
However, the suffixes can be nasalized if the noun has nasal sounds:
Some nouns are derivations using this suffixes:
Other suffixes that exist in Old Tupi: -ygûara serves in toponyms to describe a person from the place described:
It serves for all toponyms. In the movie "Hans Staden" (1999), the main character, Hans Staden, a German who could speak Old Tupi calls himself a Hessen-ygûara, "a person from Hesse" (German Hessen).