Re: If you call me insane again...

Jim Grossmann wrote:
> i)      the URL for your language if it's posted
http://Nik_Taylor.tripod.com/Conlang/W.html <-- Altho that's slightly
out-of-date.

> ii)     what the six genders are
Seven, actually.
1.  Sentient female
2.  Sentient male
3.  Sentient epicene
4.  Animals associated with people (e.g., pets, animals like mice that
hang around homes, etc.)
5.  Other animals
6.  Other animate (especially, language, spiritual entities, fire, wind,
etc.)
7.  Inanimate

The colloquial language tends to use gender 6 less often, moving G6
nouns into 5 or 7 on a fairly idiosyncratic pattern, also many dialects
have dropped gender 4, due to sound changes in those dialects that made
its marker identical to that for gender 1, using gender 5 for both kinds
of animals.

> iii)    what "inst" and "AP" are abbreviations for
Inst = Instrumental case
AP = Antipassive voice

> iv)    what makes the object antipassive
It's the verb that's antipassive.  In essence, antipassive changes the
ergative of a transitive verb into the absolutive of an intransitive
verb, just as the passive in an accusative language changes the
accusative of a transitive verb to the nominative of an intransitive
verb.

--
Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon
A nation without a language is a nation without a heart - Welsh proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

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