Re: Senyecan nouns

In a message dated 10/24/2004 10:47:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
caeruleancentaur@YAHOO.COM writes:

>The base of the definite article does agree
>with the gender (s- for animate; t- for inanimate), but the endings
>agree with the class.
Thanks for the examples of agreement.
I think I see how it works now.

A remark on terminology: I think linguists in general would say that your six
"classes/declensions" _are_ "genders" by the usual definition of gender.
("Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words"
according to Charles Hockett as quoted by Greville Corbett in his book _Gender_).
 "Inanimate" nouns would then fall into 2 of these genders (the -o and -a
genders) and "animate" nouns into the rest.  So, "animate" and "inanimate"
wouldn't be genders, but sets of genders.

Is there a reason you don't describe it that way?

Doug