Introduction
I use the archaic term ‘adnoun’ to emphasize the fact that Ancestral (unlike many of its descendants) did not have that part of speech we think of (in English) as an adjective. In Ancestral, an adnoun was simply a noun to which the head noun (the chief noun of the noun phrase) was being compared. As the Puritan missionary John Eliot wrote in his 1666 grammar of the Massachusett language:
“An Adnoun is a part of Speech that attendeth upon a Noun, and signifieth the Qualification thereof.”
That sums up the situation in Ancestral very neatly. The Ancestral adnoun typically preceded the noun it modified and was normally introduced (or marked) by a comparative particle.
For example, in English, we may translate the Ancestral phrase:
“Her eyes are the color of the sky.”
as:
“Her eyes are blue.”
Adnoun Particles
the color of
the look of
the shape of
the size of
the scent of
the feel of
the taste of
the number of
the weight of
