Each noun phrase in Shangkurian is built upon a template structure which determines the order that the morphemes occur. This is particularly important as the syntax of the sentence is very nonconfigurational due to animacy and proximity. This means that each sentence can be rearranged in a multitude of different ways and still mean, more or less, the same thing. So, because each word has many different meanings and can often be both a noun and/or a verb, each word could get lost in a cloud of meaning if they aren't organized.
The organization structure across most of the language for nouns, verbs, and clauses is that of a template called a "nominal complex" (NC). There are a series of slots the speaker can use to insert words into a construction to create a structure of meaning around an obligatory root word. The paradigm below illustrates this idea for the nominal complex:
| -2 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Demonstrative Classifier |
Count Word | ROOT | Reduplication | Possessor | Modifiers/ Adjectives |
Shangkurian has very weak word classes, meaning that the difference between a noun, verb, and adjective is nearly nonexistent. Content words can often hold the same semantic content regardless of their role in the sentence, some words are just more naturally suited to being of a particular word class, but that does not limit them from being used elsewhere in non-traditional roles. But, by no means, is this a hard-and-fast rule. Nouns can absolutely serve as verbs, and verbs can absolutely serve as nouns.
Due to this property, demonstrative classifiers (DCs) are used to introduce the start of a new NC. Based on the root's proximity, a general class is selected for its shape, size, quality, and function. At that point a proximity tone is added to the DC, if it is not a "general", "person", or "handheld object" classifier, to encode the proximity. Words marked with the ring diacritic (å) are in their dictionary form with no tone added yet.
| Proximity > Classifier v |
IP | EP | 2M | 3M | SD | UD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | puōt | ungọi | tu | kìt | otĭ | dyõc |
| People | hlī | ngụ | zuo | huòt | trŭng | ngông |
| Handheld Objects | lē | hụp | coi | truò | tăng | mpû |
| Food/Drink | kạ | |||||
| Trees/Birds | hmuèn | |||||
| Mammals/Reptiles | cĭc | |||||
| Aquatic Animals | cyō | |||||
| Places | nua | |||||
| Plates/Sheets | dẹt | |||||
| Rods/Strings | cọng | |||||
| Lumps/Bundles/Piles | tle | |||||
| Dangerous Things | kuŏc | |||||
As mentioned above, these DCs can be used to describe a great deal about the physical properties of a root, however classifiers can also be shifted to apply to unconventional roots to add a creative sense to, and impact the style of, the discourse.
A classic example of this would be the distinction between the classifiers for people, lumps/bundles, and dangerous things. If one were to discuss another person, these classifiers could be used to refer to them and use their specific meanings to shade the nominal complex with some more context. If this unidentified subject of the discourse was marked with a person classifier, then that would simply identify them as a person. However, if the lumps/bundles classifier were used, then the speaker would be implying that the person has a somewhat bundled or doughy quality. A similar thing can be expressed with the dangerous things classifier. That would instead imply that the person themself would be dangerous, maybe they're a criminal, or are likely to spread damaging rumors.
Pronouns are rarely used by themselves in Shangkurian. As a pro-drop language, the bare pronoun forms are often omitted due to the fact that the action marking indicates both the subject of an intransitive clause, or the agent/patient of a transitive clause.
The bare forms of pronouns are used, however, when a pronominal is being topicalized. In that case, it is not guaranteed that the topic will be able to be recovered from the rest of the sentence because it could equally be the subject/agent or the patient and the actional inflection. So, it is used in the topic position.
| Pronouns | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | pĭ | cùn |
| Second Person | tap | |
| Third Person | sūc | |
| Fourth Person | qẹ | |
There are instances in which there are two actional arguments, which are in the pronominal form, of the same animacy, and of the same proximity, in an utterance. In some languages, the speaker would need to either stop using the pronominal forms in order to disambiguate these arguments, or otherwise explain who is performing or receiving the action. In Shangkurian, these situations are disambiguated through obviation.
In obviation, a fourth person inflection or pronoun is used to mark the less salient of the two arguments. This situation would really only arise when talking about two third person objects, so the contrast is between third and fourth person. As such, it would be ungrammatical to topicalize a fourth person argument.
In instances where there is one animate and one inanimate argument to the action, and they would normally both be expressed with the third person, if they were alone in the clause, the inanimate would then be demoted to fourth person as it is not the most important aspect of the sentence.
Plurals are generally known as being a nominal form, which denotes a number of nouns that is more than one. However, in Shangkurian plurals are more precisely known to be multiple objects, that are counted to be more than one, in a single place. The idea of place is particularly important as it refers to the concept of a deictic center. Words that are further from the center of discourse, are dramatically less important than ones that are right around the location of the speech act.
Another important distinction to make regarding plurals would be that of simple and collective. In English, this would be the difference between "rocks" and "sand". Rocks are countable and clearly distinct objects, while sand often occurs in vast quantities, so that each individual grain cannot be easily distinguished from the rest. In the same way, simple and collective plurals denote a countable and an uncountable plural, respectively.
The number system is base-16 with new roots for each power of sixteen. When these power of sixteen roots are used, they are pluralized if their value is more than one. Culturally counted on the fingertips and joints [top two joints of each finger, and middle/hand joints on thumb]
guã number classifier