Are there any languages making a grammatical distinction between abstract and concrete nouns?
I suppose this should boil down to the question about the existence of languages having a morpheme signalling an abstract or concrete noun but you never know (maybe there are some crazy ones making the distinction with word order, phonology...)
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2There are languages that have abstract, collective etc. noun grammemes (i.e. grammatical markers) but I think you need an example of a binary opposition?– Alex B.Sep 6, 2016 at 0:48
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Not an accurate answer to your question, but Japanese verbs aru and iru have -human and +human participants in binary semantics approach.– Eray ErdinSep 6, 2016 at 9:00
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In some languages, such as Greek, abstract nouns tend to be one particular gender/class. I don't know of any languages with a class used only for abstract nouns, but it seems like something that could well exist in the thousands of minority languages out there.– curiousdannii ♦Sep 6, 2016 at 13:11
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Abstract nouns in English tend to be mass nouns.– MitchSep 6, 2016 at 13:53
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@AlexB. This might help. Please give some examples of abstract or concrete noun grammemes– jaamSep 6, 2016 at 20:12
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1 Answer
Some verbs in Russian, like iskat', search for, uses the accusative case for specific objects like "I'm looking for a book" and the genitive case for abstract objects like "I'm looking for peace and quiet". Ya ishchu knigu vs Ya ishchu mira I tishiny.
