Nominau

Nominau is a hypothetical linguistic concept describing a naming-oriented nominal morphology that governs how proper names are integrated into sentence structure in certain theoretical frameworks and constructed languages. The term is a portmanteau of nomina (names) and a suffix-like marker, and it is used mainly in thought experiments and worldbuilding communities to examine how naming systems interact with grammar.

Origin and scope: Nominau originated in discussions of onomastics and morphology within conlang communities in the early 2000s. It is not an established category in mainstream linguistics, but serves as a placeholder concept for experiments with naming and syntax.

Core features: In nominau systems, proper names can bear inflectional morphology in parallel with common nouns. Affixes may indicate grammatical role (subject, object), number, definiteness, or honorific status. Some variants combine with a case-like alignment, yielding nominal agreement with surrounding predicates. The system can be purely suffixal, prefixal, or mixed, and may apply differently to personal names, place names, and organizations.

Typology and usage: Nominau is often implemented in constructed languages to test discourse effects of naming, such as how speakers track referents when names themselves carry syntactic information. It can co-exist with other morphosyntactic alignments or stand alone as a naming layer.

Reception: Because nominau is mostly a heuristic device rather than a verified typological category, it has limited acceptance in formal descriptions of natural languages. It remains of interest to conlangers and theoretical linguists exploring the relationship between naming and grammar.