Editing Luwian language (section)

=== Nouns ===
There were two [[grammatical gender]]s: animate and inanimate/neuter. There are two [[grammatical number]]s: singular and plural. Some animate nouns could also take a collective plural in addition to the regular numerical plural.

Luwian had six [[grammatical case|cases]]:
# [[nominative]]
# [[genitive]]
# [[dative]]/[[locative]]
# [[accusative]]
# [[ablative]]/[[Instrumental case|instrumental]]
# [[vocative]]

The vocative case occurs rarely in surviving texts and only in the singular.

{| class="wikitable"
! Case
! Singular
! Plural
|-
! Nominative animate
| -s || rowspan="2" | -anzi, -inzi
|-
! Accusative animate
| -n, -an
|-
! Nominative/accusative inanimate
| -Ø, -n || -a, -aya
|-
! Genitive
| -s, -si || –
|-
! Dative/locative
| -i, -iya, -a || -anza
|-
! Ablative/instrumental
| colspan="2" | -ati
|}

In the animate gender, an ''-i-'' is inserted between the stem and the case ending. In hieroglyphic Luwian, the particle ''-sa/-za'' is added to the nominative/accusative inanimate case ending. In the genitive case, cuneiform and hieroglyphic Luwian differ sharply from each other. In cuneiform Luwian the possessive suffix ''-assa'' is used for the genitive singular and ''-assanz-'' is used for the genitive plural. In hieroglyphic Luwian, as in Hittite, the classical Indo-European suffixes ''-as'' for the genitive singular and ''-an'' for the plural are used.<ref>Melchert 2003 p. 171</ref> The special form of possessive adjectives with a plural possessor is restricted to Kizzuwatna Luwian and probably represents a [[calque]] from [[Hurrian language|Hurrian]].<ref>Yakubovich 2010, pp. 45–53</ref>

Because of the prevalence of ''-assa'' place names and words scattered around all sides of the [[Aegean Sea]], the possessive suffix was sometimes considered evidence of a shared non-Indo-European language or an Aegean [[Sprachbund]] preceding the arrivals of Luwians and [[Greeks]]. It is, however, possible to account for the Luwian possessive construction as a result of case attraction in the Indo-European noun phrase.<ref>Yakubovich 2008</ref>