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Are noun classes divided to be solely prefix/suffix?

Posted: 14 Oct 2017 01:25
by Ehesh
I'm wondering if noun classes are limited to be only as prefix or suffix. For example Y have a gender variant class for male, female and animals. Male and Female are suffix while animal is prefix. So that way I could specify dog (without specifying gender) ngirru, a male dog Ngirrutse of a female dog ngirru'a

The class for animals is ng-

animal ng-/nga-
insect ngati
dog ngirru
cat ngako
bird ngitsirau
fish ngitishia

Re: Are noun classes divided to be solely prefix/suffix?

Posted: 14 Oct 2017 01:32
by Ahzoh
Noun classes could also be infixes, circumfixes, or by ablaut.

Re: Are noun classes divided to be solely prefix/suffix?

Posted: 14 Oct 2017 01:54
by Dormouse559
Noun classes/genders can be marked any way that derivation is. So anything Ahzoh listed plus whatever you can think of. On a theoretical note, classes/genders are defined mainly by agreement of other words with nouns. Any marking on nouns that indicates or affects noun class is in fact derivation, not noun class itself.

Re: Are noun classes divided to be solely prefix/suffix?

Posted: 14 Oct 2017 12:04
by lsd
As a limit case, I told elsewhere, one can see my conlang as compound of class marks...
So any speech could be seen as just class marks...
nothing else...
In conlang anything is possible (even if anadew is probable...)

Re: Are noun classes divided to be solely prefix/suffix?

Posted: 07 Dec 2017 22:27
by eldin raigmore
Genders are concordial noun-classes.
The main thing about nouns' genders is, that other words (e.g. pronouns, articles, adjectives, adpositions, and sometimes even verbs) have to agree with them.

Noun-classes in general may not have to be agreed with.
For instance, in languages with numeral classifiers, the classifier used with a particular noun tells what its class is. But no other word has to agree with that class.
The language may also have, or may not have, gender.

There are also languages with possessive classifiers.
English has two kinds of possessive marking: "Usher's house" or "house of Usher".
In English there's little grammatical importance on the choice of which way of showing possession is used.
But in some languages, nouns are divided into two classes;
as if we could say "Usher's house" and "hound of Baskerville" but couldn't say "house of Usher" nor "Baskerville's hound", because "house" and "hound" were different classes.
But no other word has to agree with that class.
The language may also have, or may not have, gender.

Noun-classes in general, and especially genders in particular, don't have to be marked on the noun at all.