Re: Semantic differentiation of "kinds"

Isn't that existing in Austronesian languages as Indonesion/Malay, Tagalog,
Malagassy etc?

I don't remember very well, but I think these languages have things like:

one tail buffalo = one buffalo
one man driver = one driver
one plant flower = one flower

That what you mean?

Ingmar

On Sat, 24 May 2008 16:44:39 -0500, Eric Christopherson
<rakko@...> wrote:

>I'm working on a diachronic conlang, based on a preexisting
>protolanguage which gives a lot of room for innovation. I'd like to
>have it evolve adjective markers, and it occurred to me to use a noun
>meaning something like "kind" and have it evolve into a suffix, e.g.
>"red-kind house" = "red house", or maybe with a genitive particle:
>"red-kind-GEN house".
>
>Also it occurred to me that this marker could agree with nouns
>according to whether they describe inanimate objects, animals, or
>people; thus I would like to use one word/suffix that means "kind (of
>thing)", one that means "kind (of animal)", and one that means "kind
>(of person)".
>
>My question is: do any natlangs have these separate words for kinds
>depending on what they refer to? I am thinking maybe a word meaning
>"breed" could be used for animals, and a word meaning "people" or
>"race" can apply to persons, but I want the word to be at once a)
>specific to humans and b) otherwise really generic, i.e. it could be
>used to mean "race", "gender", "age group", "description", etc. Does
>this kind of word exist in natlangs?
>
>(The same word, when used on its own and not as a suffix, would
>probably evolve later into a word with more specific meaning, like
>"race" or "gender".)