Re: Semantic Content of Grammatical Gender?

Daniel Bowman wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> <snip>
>
> Has anyone else attempted a grammar that made strict semantic distinctions?
>  Did you run into similar problems, and if so, how did you solve them?
>
>
Yes - sort of. My conlang Ákat has five noun genders: P=people stuff,
N=nature stuff, M=made things, T=thought things, D=dangerous things. The
system falls over most often when it comes to deciding what the nature
thing noun should be designated as; one of my solutions is to assign
human qualities to various animals (which had the added benefit of
helping me see the cultural view of my conpeople, but does ruin the
aesthetic quality of the logic built into the grammar). eg:

ýcof (P) - likeability, lovability, enjoyability
nycof (T) - fun
tyhncof (M)- pleasure
syhncof (D)- schadenfreude
àcof (N) - pig

ácus (P) - teacher
nycus (T) - philosophy
tyhncus (M) - examination
sacus (D) - policeman
àcus (N) - dog

(As can be seen, it's not just with natural things that the system falls
over. I explain it away by claiming it makes logical sense - most of the
time - to my conpeople, but their logic is not what we'd consider to be
logical).

Rik