Re: Gender as suffixaufnahme?

Hi Eugene

On 22/02/07, Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> wrote:
>
> The gender of a noun is, by definition, inherent and invariable with
> whatever referents and antecedents it might have -- it isn't part of
> its grammatical function within an utterance but a classification
> label that determines what declension rules it follows and the
> agreement that must come with it.
>
> For example, "la vie" (the life, f.) doesn't become "le vie du garçon"
> (the life of the boy, m.).
>
> Eugene

True enough: But there /are/ cases I know of in which a noun-class affix
(which I consider to be of the same specie as gender affixes) "shifts" from
one place to another: in some languages of the Caucasus, for example, the
gender affix is a prefix on nouns and a suffix on adjectives (or is it the
other way around - not that it really matters).

Jeff.