Re: How much data in your conlang nouns?

Joe wrote:

> David Peterson wrote:
>
>> Gary wrote:
>>
>> <<1. Number (such as singular, dual, plural)
>> 2. Gender (such as masc., fem., neut.)
>> 3. Class or Declension (Varies with language)
>> 4. Case (nom., dat., gen., etc. varies with language)
>> 5. Social mode (formal, informal, royal, sacred, who
>> knows)>>
>>
>> Okie doke.  Zhyler has singular and plural, 17 noun classes, and 57
>> cases.  That comes to 1,938.  However, I'm not sure about including
>> noun classes in this list...  Or maybe I just don't understand how
>> noun classes would be the same as the plural.  If you strip away the
>> plural, the noun case, etc., you still have a basic nominal idea.  If
>> you strip away the noun class, you can end up with either nothing or
>> something completely different--same goes for the gender (e.g., "niño"
>> = "boy" in Spanish, but "niñ-" = ?).  Or am I overthinking this?
>>
>> -David
>
>
>
>
> No, you're right.  A few words will have varying noun classes/gender -
> niño, as opposed to niña, but most have fixed ones.  What would be
> interesting is if all nouns could change class, changing the meaning to
> something related.
>
I think swahili does this regularly... I was learning, but I haven't got
very far yet. Example:

mtoto   child
watoto   children
utoto   childhood

You can use changes in noun class to get dimuitive and augmentive
meanings as well I believe. Note here that m- wa- and u- show class
membership.

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