In addition to the nominal cases, nouns occur in two grammatical states: absolute and construct. (Below we consider the possibility of a pronominal case.) The absolute state is often described as the free form of the noun. The construct state is used when two nouns are juxtaposed in a construct-genitive phrase. A construct-genitive phrase is the term for the close relationship between two nouns in which the first noun is bound to the second: e.g. bnš mlk, ‘the man of the king.’ In this type of phrase, the first noun is in the nominative case and the construct state; the second noun is in the genitive case and the absolute state. The example is vocalized as /bunušu malki/. In this example, the word bunušu looks exactly the same in the construct as it does in the absolute state. However, the plural noun changes from absolute to construct states: e.g. bunušūma in the plural absolute becomes bunušū in the construct state. Following the example, bunušū malki means ‘men of the king.’ In general, we may observe that Ugaritic loses the plural and dual masculine marker –m in the construct state.

Not every sequence of nouns is a construct-genitive phrase. When in apposition, the second noun in this sequence occurs in the same case as the first: e.g. l mlkt u͗my, /lê malkati ʾummiya/, ‘to the queen, my mother.’

To review, the grammatical analysis of the noun includes the following five categories: gender, number, definiteness, case, and state. It is also valuable to describe the pattern of the noun and its possible relation to a verbal root. (We present a more thorough study of this topic later.) Most nouns can be described according to their sequence of consonants and vowels: e.g. QaTLu, QaTTāLu, etc. Certain nominal patterns carry specific connotations. Even when the semantics of the noun are not linked to the nominal pattern, we may observe that nominal patterns exhibit predictable morphological changes.