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Re: How much data in your conlang nouns?

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Monday, January 5, 2004, 22:31
Hallo!

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 21:28:58 -0800,
Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:

> I was thinking about natlangs and conlangs and how > nouns are used and it occured to me to tabulate the > kinds of information embodied in a noun beyond the > proverbial person, place or thing that it names. In > other words, what information do you need before you > can write down a noun in a sentence in your conlang? > > For example, many languages give nouns gender, so you > would need to know its gender. Languages of the Bantu > family may have as many as 10 or 15 noun classes so > you need to know which family it belongs to. With > Latin nouns you have to know what declension they > belong to, and with any inflected language you need to > know the case of the noun in that particular sentence. > > So here's my starter list. What does your language > need that I haven't listed?
There is one category that is often marked on nouns which you have left out: definiteness. I'll give data for Old Hesperic and Germanech.
> 1. Number (such as singular, dual, plural)
Old Hesperic: singular and plural; a few nouns denoting things usually coming in pairs (e.g. eyes, shoes) also have a dual which is only used for matching pairs. Germanech: singular and plural.
> 2. Gender (such as masc., fem., neut.)
Old Hesperic: animate and inanimate, with animate being subdivided into masculine, feminine and common. Gender derivations are very productive in the animate class (e.g. _chvana_ `dog', _chvano_ `male dog', _chvane_ `female dog'), with some exceptions that have fixed genders (e.g. _ndero_ `man', or collective entities such as _tamba_ `family') Germanech: masculine and feminine.
> 3. Class or Declension (Varies with language)
Old Hesperic: all nouns of a given gender are declined according to the same paradigm. Germanech: most nouns form their plural regularly with the suffix -s (-es after sibilants). There are a few irregular plurals (e.g. _corfres_, pl. of _corfs_ `body').
> 4. Case (nom., dat., gen., etc. varies with language)
Old Hesperic: animate nouns have eight cases (agentive, genitive, dative, objective, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative); inanimate nouns have only five cases (objective, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative). Germanech: no case system.
> 5. Social mode (formal, informal, royal, sacred, who > knows)
Neither Old Hesperic nor Germanech have such distinctions. 6. Definiteness Old Hesperic: there's a definite article, but no indefinite article. Germanech: there are definite and indefinite articles, the latter only in the singular (as in English and German). Greetings, Jörg.

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Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>Conlang born of a boring meeting