Gender in conlangs (was: Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad))

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:20:19 +0100, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
wrote:
> Surely there must have been _some_ grounds for the gender assignments,
> originally, no matter who random they may look after millennia of
> semantic, societal and technological change.
Gender in Kirumb is assigned purely for morphological reasons:  whatever
kind of stem-formant a substantive is made from determines whether a word
is m./f./neut., regardless of the meaning of the root; e.g. words in
nomen-actionis <-irí> are all f., words in nomen-agentis <-os> are m., etc.

(However by the time of Atlantic Kirumb grammatical gender has ceased to
be of relevance.)

How do others with conlangs with the familiar masc-fem-neut gender system
assign gender to words?



      *Muke!
--
http://frath.net/
http://kohath.livejournal.com/

E jer savne zarjé mas ne   (You put music in my heart
Se imné koone'f metha       And with the spirit of an artist
Brissve mé kolé adâ.        I will make the dreamtime)

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