Re: Senyecan nouns

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@A...> wrote:
In a message dated 10/24/2004 5:51:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
caeruleancentaur@Y... writes:

>The nominative ending is -n, the
>genitive -s, the accusative -m.
>>Genitive -s and accusative -m have an Indo-European look to them.
(I'm
>>thinking of what I know of Latin, for example.)  Is there an
>>intentional connection?
Thank you for asking.  Senyecan purports to be the first language in
my conculture.  The area of the conculture is the Ukrainian and
Russian steppes bound by the Urals on the east and the Caucasus on
the south, sometime between the eruption of the supervolcano Mt. Toba
in Sumatra (72,000 B.P.) and the last Ice Age.  Senyecan after a time
evolves into Proto-Indo-European.

>Adjectives follow the same patterns and agree with their nouns in
>number, case, and declension, whether attributive or predicative.
>>Usually adjectives are said to agree in "gender" rather
>>than "declension."
>>Can you give some examples of nouns with adjectives agreeing with
>>them?
i-class, e-class, ø-class and u-class nouns are animate.  a-class
and
o-class nouns are inanimate, so there can't be gender agreement.  The
adj. must instead agree in declension.

the white horse = sen álen étsöen in the nom.
the white rock = ton álon óndon in the nom.

the white horse = sem álem étsöem in the acc.
the white rock = tom álom óndom in the acc.

the beautiful woman = sun méngun göénun in the nom.
the beautiful oak = sin méngin pércöin in the nom.

the fierce centaur = søn yóórøn mhirétsöøn
the fierce lion = sen yóóren lében

the broken oarpin = ton vérdzaÞon töélon
the broken rib = sen vérdzaÞen révïen

You can see that the agreement of the adj. has nothing to do with the
gender (the animateness or inanimateness) of the noun, but with the
declension of the noun.  The base of the definite article does agree
with the gender (s- for animate; t- for inanimate), but the endings
agree with the class.