Re: Noun and noun or noun

"From Http://Members.Aol.Com/Lassailly/Tunuframe.Html" wrote:
> How do your conlangs deal with definite, abstract, collective, etc. nouns ?
Using my alternate, more phonemic, orthography
Collective: paci- (usually gender 7, but not always), e.g., wapacisaga'
= story (lit. "collection of words"), pipacisani' = village (sani' =
house), pipacicani' = life (concrete, lit. "collection of years")

Abstract: suffix -la', e.g., yawinna', death (from yawi'n, "die")
  -la' is a strange suffix, with morphophonemic weirdnesses.  In Old W.,
it caused stress to shift one syllable rightward.  Plus, the l and any
preceding consonant underwent metathesis, and l+consonant became
geminate consonants.  Thus, Old W. qihaquhe'n (to rest; used
euphemistically for "die") became yawi'n (loss of /h/ and /q/, merging
of /i/ and /e/), while qihaquhenla' (rest) became qihaquhelna' then
qihaquhenna' then finally pyawinna' (with the addition of the gender 7
prefix)

There are a number of pairs of "abstract" and "concrete" words
translated as the same thing in English, for instance, pipacicani' is a
concrete word meaning "life", that is, an individual life, as in "3000
lives were lost in the attack" or "he loved her for all his life", while
wakassa' is "life" in the abstract, as in "life and death".

--
"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
was hanged." - Irish proverb
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