The noun

The noun (ot) is an independent part of speech that names people, things, places, events and ideas; it answers the questions kim? (who?), nima? (what?) and qayer? (where? which place?). It is the most frequent word class in Uzbek: almost every sentence has a noun as its subject or object. That is why at least one task in the grammar section usually deals with noun cases, possessive suffixes or the plural. A student who knows the noun well will find the following topics — phrases, parts of the sentence, complex sentences — much easier, because noun forms play the central role in all of them.

§1. Semantic types of nouns

By meaning, nouns fall into several paired groups. One and the same noun belongs to several groups at once: daryo (river) is common, concrete and names a thing.

• Proper and common nouns: Toshkent, Anvar, Amudaryo, «O‘tkan kunlar» — shahar, bola, daryo, kitob (city, child, river, book). A proper noun is the special name of one particular thing; a common noun is the general name for things of one kind.
• Concrete and abstract nouns: stol, daraxt, non (table, tree, bread) — baxt, sevgi, tafakkur, adolat (happiness, love, thought, justice). A concrete thing can be seen or touched; an abstract noun denotes an idea, a feeling or a quality.
• Nouns of person (o‘qituvchi, shifokor — teacher, doctor), thing (qalam — pen), place (dala, maktab — field, school) and activity or process (kurash, o‘qish — wrestling, reading).
• Individual and collective nouns: qo‘y (sheep) — poda (herd), askar (soldier) — qo‘shin (army), daraxt (tree) — o‘rmon (forest). A collective noun is singular in form but denotes many.

A common noun can become proper (lola "tulip" — Lola, a girl’s name), and a proper noun can become common: Bu bola — haqiqiy Alpomish ("this boy is a real Alpomish", i.e. a strong hero).

§2. Plural and diminutive forms

These forms add extra meaning to a word but do not link it to other words in the sentence. That is why they are called lexical form suffixes.

• Plural -lar: kitoblar, daraxtlar. It also has stylistic uses: respect (Dadam keldilar — "my father has come"), approximation (soat beshlarda — "at around five o’clock"), intensity and abundance (qorlar yog‘di — "a lot of snow fell", qumlar), irony (Katta olimlar ham kelibdi — "even the great scholars have come").
• Diminutive-affectionate suffixes: -cha (qizcha, kitobcha), -choq/-chak (toychoq, qo‘zichoq), -jon (bolajon), -gina/-kina/-qina (uygina, qopqina), -loq (qizaloq).

Collective nouns usually do not take -lar, or change meaning when they do: xalq (people, nation) — xalqlar (peoples, several nations).

§3. Possessive suffixes

A possessive suffix shows which person the thing belongs to and makes the noun agree with a word in the genitive: mening kitobim (my book), sening kitobing (your book).

• After a consonant: kitob-im, kitob-ing, kitob-i, kitob-imiz.
• After a vowel: ona-m, ona-ng, ona-si, ona-miz.

Adding the suffix may cause sound changes:

• loss of a vowel: burun → burni (nose), og‘iz → og‘zi (mouth), o‘g‘il → o‘g‘li (son);
• voicing: yurak → yuragi (heart), qishloq → qishlog‘i (village); kitob → kitobi, however, stays unchanged.

Order of suffixes: plural first, then possessive, and the case suffix last: kitob-lar-im-ni.
The possessive suffix pairs with the genitive case to form a possessive construction: Anvarning ukasi (Anvar’s younger brother), bizning maktabimiz (our school). The genitive word is often dropped while the suffix remains: (mening) ukam keldi (my brother came). So the suffix always tells you which person is meant.

§4. Cases

Case suffixes link the noun to other words, most often to a verb or another noun, so they create a syntactic form. Uzbek has six cases:

Each case has a typical job in the sentence: nominative — subject or nominal predicate; genitive — attribute; accusative — direct object; dative, locative and ablative — indirect object or adverbial.
Unmarked use: the genitive (maktab hovlisi = maktabning hovlisi, "the school yard") and the accusative (kitob o‘qidim — "I read books" in general; kitobni o‘qidim — "I read the book", a definite one) may appear without a suffix. The variants -ka and -qa are added to words ending in k and q: tilak-ka, tog‘ + qa → toqqa.

Worked example

Identify the noun forms in Do‘stimning ukasidan xat oldim ("I received a letter from my friend’s younger brother").

1. do‘st-im-ning: 1st person possessive + genitive case.
2. uka-si-dan: 3rd person possessive + ablative case.
3. xat: unmarked accusative, as it answers nimani oldim? (what did I receive?).
4. Answer: genitive, ablative and unmarked accusative.

§5. Noun formation and structure

A new noun is formed from another word with a suffix or by joining two stems.
Noun-forming suffixes: -chi (ishchi worker, sportchi), -kor (paxtakor cotton grower), -zor (gulzor flower garden), -xona (oshxona kitchen), -dosh (vatandosh compatriot, sinfdosh classmate), -lik (do‘stlik friendship, yaxshilik kindness), -chilik (paxtachilik), -im (bilim knowledge, terim harvest), -sh/-ish (, ), ( eraser), (), ( linguist).

• simple: gul, gulzor (a derived noun is still simple, since it has one root);
• compound: oshqozon (stomach), tog‘olcha, Yangiyer — two roots form one concept;
• paired: ota-ona (parents), qozon-tovoq (pots and pans) — written with a hyphen;
• reduplicated: bola-bola, uy-uy — one word repeated.

Worked example

Break down paxtakorlarimizga ("to our cotton growers") into morphemes.

1. Root: paxta (noun, cotton).
2. Derivational suffix -kor — a new noun paxtakor is formed.
3. -lar — plural (lexical form).
4. -imiz — 1st person plural possessive.
5. -ga — dative case.
6. Answer: paxta + kor + lar + imiz + ga.

§6. The noun in the sentence and nominalisation

A noun can be almost any part of the sentence:

• subject: Bahor keldi. (Spring has come.)
• predicate: Akam — shifokor. (My brother is a doctor.)
• object: Kitobni o‘qidim. (I read the book.)
• attribute: maktab bog‘i (the school garden), oltin uzuk (a gold ring).
• adverbial: Kechqurun keldi (came in the evening), Qishloqda yashaydi (lives in the village).

Words of other classes used in place of a noun and taking noun suffixes become nominalised (otlashadi): Yaxshidan bog‘ qoladi (adjective), O‘qiganlar keldi (participle), Uchovi ham keldi (numeral).

Worked example

In Kattalarning gapiga quloq sol ("Listen to what your elders say"), which word class and which part of the sentence is kattalarning?

1. katta is originally an adjective (qanday? — what kind?).
2. It has taken -lar and -ning and answers kimlarning? — so it is nominalised.
3. -ning is the genitive; the word depends on gapiga.
4. Answer: a nominalised adjective functioning as a genitive attribute.

Check yourself

1. What semantic type of noun is adolat?

2. Is qo‘shin an individual or a collective noun?

3. Which case is ukamga in Ukamga kitob berdim?

4. Which case is unmarked in maktab bog‘i?

5. What does -lar express in Dadam keldilar?

6. Add the 3rd person singular possessive suffix to bola.

7. What structural type is the noun ota-ona?

8. How is o‘g‘il written with the 3rd person possessive suffix?

Common mistakes

• Confusing -ni (accusative) and -ning (genitive): uyning eshigi (the door of the house), but uyni ko‘rdim (I saw the house).
• Taking an unmarked accusative for the subject: in Men xat yozdim the word xat is an object.
• Treating -lar as always plural and missing its meanings of respect or approximation.
• Adding -i to a word ending in a vowel: ✗ onai → ✓ onasi.
• Calling a derived noun compound: gulzor is simple and derived, oshqozon is compound.
• Breaking the suffix order: ✗ kitobimlar → ✓ kitoblarim.