Noun instancing

Noun instancing is a grammatical phenomena found in several languages of Fountainhead, in particular Alöbi and its derived mixed language Möxali.

Languages which exhibit noun instancing distinguish two types of reference: When instanced nouns are first introduced to the discourse, an instancing prefix is attached to the noun stem which typically specifies the grammatical number and animacy of the referent. The prefix may be left off subsequent references to the same instanced nouns, which still carry grammatical number as an underlying property. An instancing prefix may also be used to emphasise the number or animacy of a referent, or to clarify which referent is being referred to if it is not clear from context. In most instancing languages, proper nouns are naturally always instanced.
 * Instanced — countable reference to a particular instance of a thing regardless of definiteness, e.g. "a person", "the person", "two people"
 * Uninstanced — uncountable reference to a kind or category of thing, e.g. "people" or "humans" in general

A newly introduced referent which lacks an instancing prefix is understood to mean reference to the kind or category of a thing in general, rather than to a particular instance of it, i.e. "people (in general)" rather than "a person" or "the person". These uninstanced nouns do not carry grammatical number, but act like plurals in agreement with verb suffixes.

Möxali
The instancing prefixes of Möxali are shown in the table below.

These correspond to roughly the same meanings as the equivalent prefixes used in Alöbi, from which the Möxali forms are derived. The dual number is unique in not distinguishing animacy, and has slightly extended its usage from pairs of animate things to small complete sets of two, three and very occasionally four. For example, the zivon (64 day month) of the Öcvizñox calendar is sometimes referred to as kovíne in reference to its four ovíne "great segments" which are each incomplete and exist only as parts of the whole, hence the use of the dual number. Such situations would use the paucal number in Alöbi, which is no longer present in Möxali. The plural number represents any greater number, but unlike in Alöbi can also be used for as little as two referents, so long as those two things aren't considered to form a pair or complete set.