Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: A wacky language

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Thursday, February 5, 2004, 3:47
paul-bennett wrote:
> > On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 22:25:42 -0600 Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> > wrote. > > >Nouns have changeable gender, and not an issue of semantics, as in > >having a single root for "boy" and "girl" > > Let me be sure I've parsed this correctly. > > For a single root |boi-| and gender markers |-m| (masculine) and |-f| > (feminine), the words |boim| and |boif| mean "boy" and "girl". > > Is that what you meant? It's the pattern from Elamite, and IIRC Burushaski > (and also AFMCL Thagojian), but it's not magnificently weird.
No, that's what I meant to avoid. That is, noun gender could change, perhaps for syntactic reasons, but it would *not* be a matter of semantic changes, as in boy/girl. Perhaps, say, there's 5 genders, numbered G1-G5, by their usage in indicative sentences. In subjunctive sentences, G1 -> G2, G2 -> G3, G3 -> G4, G4 -> G5, G5 -> G1 In interrogative sentences, G1, G3 -> G2; G2, G4 -> G1, G5 -> G3 (but sometimes G4) In negative sentences, G1 -> G3, G2 -> G2 or G4 if there's another G2 noun ... Or a kind of "gender sandhi" :-) Things like G1 -> G3 if the next noun is G3 -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42