Ákat objects: balancing stone on stone

Ákat, just like the base languages from which it was constructed, makes extensive use of object phrases. Many object phrases in the old languages developed their own unique meaning which had little to do with the constituent objects in the phrase. The Nakap Philosophers disapproved of this practice and in over the course of time attempted to replace such phrases with their own neologisms. The success of this project was only partial: many of the neologisms were taken on board by the wider Nakap communities while many others did not. And despite every effort by the Philosophers, Ákat has evolved and some old object phrases have become reincorporated into the language.

An object phrase will consist of two or more objects, one of which will operate as the head object and the other(s) as the modifying object. The language is head initial (as opposed to Ramajal, which is a head final language), with the modifying object(s) following the head object.

All modifying objects carry a modifier particle which, for the most part, goes before the class marker. These particles (which can be a little idiosyncratic in use) can be grouped as follows:

The adjective group

• The descriptive particle liw|lij|tl|lin|sl is commonly used to indicate that the head noun has the physical qualities of the modifying noun.
• the assignatory particle ti is used to assign the physical qualities of the modifying noun to the head noun.
• the metaphorical particle ci assigns the metaphorical or philosophical aspects of a modifying noun to the head noun, rather than the physical, sensory aspects - good translations for this particle are 'like' and 'as'.

The genetive group

• the ephemeral particle si - a good translation for this particle would possible be 'have' - Ákat lacks a verb that acts like the Ramajal verb, instead relying on this particle to do much of the work. There is some overlap with the ni particle here; the general distinction is that si handles the non-physical stuff (age, emotions, diseases, beliefs, etc) while ni will be used for the stuff you can touch.
• the temporary genetive particle ni is used to indicate that the head noun is temporarily being posessed by the modifying noun.
• the general genetive particle xi tells us that the modifying noun has posession of the head noun, though in this case the posession is routine, expected, more permanent.
• the inalienable genetive particle hriw|hrij|thr|hrin|shr is used to demonstrate an inalienable posession eg body parts (this is not the only use of this modifier, so Ákat speakers have to rely on context to decide if inalienable posession is the intended meaning of the phrase).

The conjunctive group

• the concatenative particle e groups objects together (Peter and Mary, the dog and the cat), where both the modified object and the modifying object have equal centrality; it is also used for group nouns (a herd of goats, a crowd of people), where the group noun always follows the noun being grouped (goats eherd).
• the instrumental particle mi acts similarly to the concatenative particle, but here the difference is that the object being modified is more central than the modifying particle (Peter, with Mary, stole the sweets). Care should be taken not to confuse this particle with the oblique instrumental particles 'mii', 'mio' and 'myl'
• the partitive particle o is used to specifically exclude an object from a list of objects (Peter, but not Mary, stole the sweets). Note that general negation of objects and object phrases is handled by the negation prefix xa-, not the partitive particle.

The miscellaneous group

• the associative particle ki is used for several purposes, for instance assigning a name to an object, or a particular personal noun to a person or object.
• the comparative particle fi is used for both comparatives and superlatives - when used as a comparative the object the noun is being compared to is cast in the oblique case with the oblique particle FY