Re: 3 aspects. Interesting.

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, abrigon wrote:

> I can see it, was working on a like idea in my conlang..
> Living, Non-Living and concepts, but what of things that are more than
> concepts, such as pain?Or is that under Sensatory?
>
> Mike
>
>
>> As far as the language is concerned, there are 3 basic pronominal roots
>> distinguishing animate, inanimate and abstract.  There are around 20
>> classifier-type roots which distinguish a variety of sensory, shape,
>> use,
>> emotional, etc. categories.
Well, pain and emotions would basically fall under the abstract gender.
Animate would include people and animals, and nowadays computers, TV's and
radios that are TURNED ON, etc.  Inanimate would include other physically
manifest objects, plants, rocks, etc.  Abstract is everything else.  There
is one other gender, but it refers only to one thing: the aggregate of
existence (draqa concept of God).  Of course, since everything in the
Universe is included in this version of God, technically, anything can fit
into this gender (of course, context must be appropriate here).

There is a class of words that are extremely vague that are used to refer
to things in a pronoun-like way, but aren't really pronouns.  In any case,
the system uses natural gender, as there is no overt marking or agreement.

Just for fun, I'll kinda show what I mean...
pronouns:
xan             ego
kaean           1st person exclusive plural
miks            1st person inclusive plural
moi             other animate
wahi            other animate (1st obviate)
da              other animate (2nd obviate)
wik             narrative animate plural
mak             narrative animate plural (obviate)
fehwa           other inanimate
faho            other inanimate (obviate)
coi             other abstract
cal             other abstract (obviate)
fehi            "the Universal" (a.k.a 'Xemba')
kwai            general
wan             interrogative

"classifiers":
akeh            people/animals (considered to be people)
kila            class or group of people
saki            birds, flying things (would include airplanes, etc.)
pona            plant
bor             body parts, integral parts of objects
doa             location, environment, setting
pipi            large structure
hioc            open construction (like a table, stand, etc.)
kui             "box"-shaped construction
co              tool, household implement (also includes rags, etc.)
paska           textiles, clothing, ornaments
spa             flat object
bada            long narrow (cylindrical) object
xixi            circular object
xis             mass objects (sand, liquid, fire, air, etc.)
tekno           modern technology (dike the word "gadget")
ayo             processes, actions, occurences, situations
xoi             songs, language, dance, emotions, colors, perceptions


These "classifiers" are used often, because draqa people are too lazy to
keep on calling an object by its "proper" name.  Technically, these are
supposed to be bound the the "kwai" pronoun, but most of the time draqa
people are too lazy to do that either.  Many items could fit into more
than one category, but are only referred to with a specific classifier.

Anyway...

a beac,
yasmin