Things and big things: classes 7 and 8

Class 7 takes ki- and class 8 takes i-

Chatelain puts every noun that begins with ki- in the third class of his scheme, which is class 7 and 8 in the standard numbering. To make the plural, change ki- to i-. The plural belongs to class 8. He writes that this class once held only things without life. Today it also holds some people and animals.

Singular and plural

The stem stays the same. Only the prefix changes. The plural can have extra meanings, so open a word to see every meaning it has.

Big things also take ki-

Chatelain adds that this class holds all augmentatives. An augmentative is a bigger version of a noun. He gives one example: the word for a big woman, made from the word for a woman. The dictionary gives a second one, for a big dog. In both, ki- begins the new word and the stem of the base noun follows.

Chatelain says the plural of an augmentative is formed like the plural of a diminutive, which the unit on classes 12 and 13 teaches. He gives no example of an augmentative plural, so none appears here.