Re: Epicene words

Hallo!

On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 20:10:44 +0200,
Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:

> On Feb 26, 2005, at 5:36 PM, caeruleancentaur wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Perhaps others in the list would share with us some of their animal
> > names, how they derived them and how they distinguish when the name
> > is epicene.
> > Charlie
>
> Well, in Rokbeigalmki almost all nouns are automatically epicene/common
> gender, and you need to add a prefix to specify the sex:
>
> mald = human
> i-mald = woman
> o-mald = man
>
> slyihthl = snake
> i-slyihthl = female snake
> o-slyihthl = male snake
>
> datãv = healer
> i-datãv = female healer
> o-datãv = male healer
Old Albic uses a similar system.  The basic forms of most animate
nouns are epicene and end in -a.  From these, male and female forms
are derived by changing the final -a into -o and -e, respectively:

_alba_ `Elf'
_albo_ `male Elf'
_albe_ `female Elf'

_chvana_ `dog'
_chvano_ `male dog'
_chvane_ `female dog'

_halera_ (< *hal-ir-a) `healer'
_heliro_ (< *hal-ir-o) `male healer'
_helire_ (< *hal-ir-e) `female healer'

With collective animate nouns like _tamba_ `family', however, such
derivations are not possible.  There are also some words with fixed
gender, such as _atto_ `father' and _amme_ `mother' while #_atte_ or
#_ammo_ do not exist.

> However, somehow it's possible to tell from a person's name whether
> they're male or female.  I haven't figured out how that works yet,
> though.  I just know that it does.
Personal names end in -o for males and -e for females in Old Albic.
Some names are used in -o form for males and in -e form for females,
but there are also names that are only used for one sex.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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