Gendered animate nouns (was Re: FW: Nauradi)

Hallo!

On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:51:56 -0000, caeruleancentaur wrote:

> In Senjecas, most animate nouns are epicene, but there is a male or
> female prefix if differentiation is necessary, e.g., amhes, bird;
> iiamhes, hen; noramhes, cock.
Old Albic is similar in this regard.  Most animate nouns are
epicene and end in -a, e.g. _chvana_ 'dog', _cvasta_ 'human'.
Yet, masculine and feminine forms can be derived from them
by changing the final /a/ into /o/ for masculine or /e/ for
feminine, e.g. _chvano_ 'male dog', _chvane_ 'female dog'.

There are nouns, though, which are fixed in gender, e.g.
_ndaro_ 'man', _sare_ 'woman'.  Also, nouns for collective
entities are fixed "epicene", e.g. _mbara_ 'city'; the forms
_*mbaro_ and _*mbare_ do not exist.

Inanimate nouns end in consonants and have no such gender
derivations.

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf