Re: CHAT: New Member With Questions

> 1)  Word Classes.  What the heck is this?  Obviously I am familiar with
> the
> basics, i.e. Noun, Verb, Adverb, Adjective.  When searching on-line I
> found
> repeated references to classes that exist in other languages that do
> not
> fit
> into those categories; unfortunatly those sites gave no explanations.
> Does
> anyone know anything about those other classes?
And...
> 2)  Again With Word Classes.  Can a language make a distiction in
> class
> between, say, a proper noun, and a abstract noun?  Does any know of
> any
> languages that do?
In the very first language I created, I made distinctions between most of the
different types of nouns and ajdectives I encountered, though not all. I've
come up with a list of them. Hope this helps:

Nouns
1.) Active Human Noun: The doer of an action (i.e.: teacher.)
2.) Passive Human Noun: One who has an action done to him/her (keeping with "to
teach", "student" would be an example)
3.) Natural Noun: Any natural substance, plant, animal, etc. (i.e., "dog",
"hibiscus". Note: There are also mass and count nouns. "Dog" is a count name,
seeing as you can say "a dog" and mean one dog. "Grass", however, is a mass
noun, in that you can't say "a grass" and mean anything. It's only dealt with
in mass quantities)
4.) Active Object Noun: Doer of an action, though not human (i.e. "can opener")
5.) Passive Object Noun: Object that has an action done to it (i.e., "a book",
which doesn't read, but is read)
6.) Active Verbal Noun: Like an infinitive and abstract nouns ("teaching",
"democracy", "organization"...)
7.) Passive Verbal Noun: Abstract noun that is passive (e.g., if one were to talk
about the occupation of being a student, one might call his occupation "being
taught")
8.) Active Place Noun: A place in which one does something ("school", for teachers)
9.) Passive Place Noun: (A place in which one has something done to him/her
("school", for students--unless they're going to learn, and not be taught)
10.) Instance of Action Noun: Used to identify one particular instance of doing
something (both active and passive) (example: "a jump", "a try", "a kill", "a
throw", "a reception"...)
11.) Miscellaneous: Colors, Numbers, Days of the week, Months of the year,
categories for the Study of something vs. the Practice of something,
Correlatives...

Adjectives
1.) Natural Adjectives: Words that are naturally adjectives ("beautiful", "happy")
2.) Active Verbal Adjective: like a gerund ("gratifying", "exhilarating", "dislocating")
3.) Passive Verbal Adjective: like a past participle ("electrified", "energized", "quantified")
4.) Nominal Adjectives: Take any noun category and turn it into an adjective
(example: Place Nouns: "heavenly", "hellish", Human Nouns: "foppish",
"teacher-like", Object Nouns: "bookish", etc.)
5.) Miscellaneous: Colors, Numbers, Demonstratives, etc.

Those are the overarching categories I came up with. I sometimes group "instance of
action" nouns in with "object nouns" just because that's what happens in
English oftentimes. For adverbs, just throw an adverb affix on anything. Verbs
are too, too, too numerous to list, so I haven't. Latin will give you a good
number. For odd verbs, just ask the group. I'm sure they'll be happy to provide
you with odd, out-there examples. I, though, must shower and go to class.

-David