Peshpeg: Difference between revisions

Peshpeg nouns fall into three declension classes, simply called Class I, Class II, and Class III.  The noun classes roughly coincide with natural gender and/or animacy.  Class I nouns, which can take ergative marking and also mark for number, are typically male, or consist of nouns that are associated with male attributes, particularly weapons.  Certain animals, such as horses, meteorological phenomena, and supernatural events and divinities also fall within this class.  Class II nouns contain all other nouns that can be counted.  These nouns preserve the older nominative-accusative system: they do not take the ergative ''-du/-dumu'' markers, but they do take accusative marking.  An interesting characteristic of these nouns is that they are considered to be low animacy nouns.  Lastly, Class III nouns take no marking for case or number.  Nouns falling in this class include certain body parts, mass nouns, and abstract nouns.