Blackfoot nouns have endings for singular or plural. To better understand number in Blackfoot, let’s take a look at the nouns ponoká ‘elk’ and soksistsikó ‘cloud’.
| Stem | Blackfoot word | Word parts | English | Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ponoká- | ponokáwa | ponoká-wa | ‘elk’ | SINGULAR |
| ponokáíksi | ponoká-íksi | ‘elks’ | PLURAL | |
| soksistsikó- | soksistsikóyi | soksistsikó-yi | ‘cloud’ | SINGULAR |
| soksistsikóístsi | soksistsikó-ístsi | ‘clouds’ | PLURAL |
For the noun stem ponoká, the ending –wa indicates that it is singular and –iksi indicates that it is plural. For the noun stem soksistsikó, the ending –yi indicates that it is singular and –istsi indicates that it is plural.The endings are different because ponokásoksistsikó is an inanimate noun. See the section on animacy for more information.
Most nouns in the dictionary have an example of a plural form, so you can see which plural ending it takes.
