Goal: Create class markers or new nouns
Note: Grammaticalized markers typically reduce in form.
Tip: The reduction can be more dramatic than regular sound changes.
Work focus: Create/Make/List
If you are not going to have any noun classes in your language, then spend today creating more nouns to add to your lexicon. (If you don’t have any inflections, you’ll have today and the three days that follow it to create more words in your language!)
If you are marking noun classes, then today is the day to create the forms that will mark the classes. First, look at the words you selected to serve as lexical sources for your noun classes. If there are any words you have not yet created forms for, then take a moment to do that.
The next step is to reduce those lexical forms beyond what you’d see in regular sound changes. For example, let’s say you have the proto-form *mauwi, which becomes movi in its modern form after applying sound changes. Its grammaticalized form might be mi, where the middle sounds are reduced even more.
If your class markers are affixing to the noun base, consider what phonological interaction they’ll have with the base, including what sound changes will apply after the affix is added. Sound changes are a way to create irregular forms that feel naturalistic in your language.
For each class marker you create, provide an example of it occurring with a noun to demonstrate how it appears in context. The more examples you show, the more you may find areas you can smooth out with sound changes (i.e. create more sound changes) or with different ways to reduce the inflectional form to interact better with a variety of noun roots.