Re: Sarah's language.

En réponse à Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>:

>
> That's the way I'd do it. This is why in Latin, for example, you need
> to
> know two forms of a noun to be able to tell what declension it is.
> First
> declension masculine nouns end with -us in the nominative singular,
> but
> so do fourth declension feminine nouns.
>
Yep. That's why you also need the genitive singular, since its ending is
different for each declension (-i for the first, -ae for the second, -is for
the third, -us for the fourth and -ei for the fifth).

>
> Well, sort of. Latin has 4 declensions,
Nope, Latin has five declensions. The fifth one contains only a few words, but
extremely common, like res: thing and dies: day. In Vulgar Latin they merged
with the second declension, but they stayed always in Classical Latin.

> They're connected concepts--first declension is always masculine
> (except
> for a few neuters), second is always feminine,
Except for a few masculine, like agricola: peasant.

 third contains examples
> of all genders, fourth is mostly feminine (IIRC)
Yep, although it does contain a few neuter IIRC.

The 5th declension contains mostly feminine nouns although dies could be
masculine or feminine indifferently.

--but they don't line
> up
> exactly.
Indeed.

 Adjectives always use the first or second declension endings
> to
> match the gender of the noun they modify, even if the noun is in the
> third or fourth declension.
>
Actually, Latin adjectives come in two classes. The first class uses the
endings of the first declension for masculine and neuter, and the endings of
the second for feminine, while the second class uses the endings of the third
declension for every gender (like gravis: heavy). But you're right in saying
that the choice in this case is purely a matter of gender agreement, not of
declension agreement.

Funny enough, I remember that my first conlangs were Latin-inspired languages
which all had a perfect mapping between declension and gender ;))) . At that
time I hadn't discovered yet the wonders of irregularity ;)))) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.