Class 15: nominalised verbs

Class 15 is the only shikomori noun class that holds verbs, not objects or humans. Specifically, verbs used as nouns: « the act of reading », « the act of eating », « the action of seeing ».

In English, this matches the gerund (« reading is essential »). Shikomori does the same but marks this nominal status with an explicit prefix:

• u- in shimaoré and shiNdzuani
• hu- in shiNgazidja (and older shiNdzuani)

Class 15 has no plural — an infinitive doesn't pluralise; it's a global notion.

This is arguably the most productive dialect correspondence in shikomori. Every infinitive goes through this rule:

• Initial hu- → it's shingazidja (or older shindzuani)
• Initial u- → it's shimaoré (or modern shindzuani)

Converting from one dialect to another is mechanical: add or remove the initial h-. A few exceptions:

• hwendra (Nz) ↔ uendra (Ma) — same dr root; in shiNgazidja, hwenɗa is still to be checked
• hukentsi (Ng) ↔ uketsi (Ma) — the pre-nasal nk simplifies to k

You'll revisit these rules in detail in Module 5. For now, just a teaser.

From a class-15 infinitive, you can derive a matching abstract noun — often in class 3 (prefix m-):

• husoma / usoma (to read) → msomo (reading, study — as a noun)
• With definite pre-prefix: *o*msomo (the reading)

And from the same root, you can form other verbs by derivation:

• husoma (to read) → husomesa (to make-read = to teach) — causative
• husoma → husomwa (to be read) — passive

This is Bantu agglutination: building whole word families from a single root. To go further, Module 4 (already seen) covers conjugation, and Modules 5+ explore these derivations.

You now know how to:

• Decompose a word into prefix + root
• Identify the 7 main genders (1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11+14, 15)
• Recognise classes by their plural (wa-, mi-, ma-, zi-, identical, ø)
• Disambiguate tricky cases (cl. 1 vs cl. 3 in sg, cl. 5 vs cl. 9 without prefix)
• Use the hu-/u- rule to switch between dialects

That's shikomori's architecture. With Module 1 (sounds), Module 2 (vocabulary), Module 4 (sentences) and now Module 3 (morphology), you hold the four pillars.

Module 5 systematises the dialect variation rules. Module 6 teaches you to read older texts (1988 notation). Module 7 dives into culture, proverbs, tales.