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Noun Class (Gender) in Jaloskan
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An explanation of noun class in Jaloskan and how it affects the words used.
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 7 Jun 2016, 04:23.

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Each word in Jaloskan has one of five class assigned to it: physical, natural, conceptual, spiritual, or neutral. The ending of a word does not indicate its class; however, the class is not assigned arbitrarily. Each class can be determined based on the meaning of the word, with some anomalies. The class of the word determines almost everything about the sentence; the form of any adjective used, the way the verb is conjugated (usually), the articles used, and sometimes more. This difference can be seen in two sample sentences below:

Ja bamis vanalza vikamaj rusav ja gave.

(The blue water flows down the hill.)

L'elidan vanalzo vikamal rusav ja gave.

(The blue juice flows down the hill.)

As you can see, a change of one word in English could affect a total of four words in Jaloskan (L' in Jaloskan is simply a contraction of the physical definite article and any word starting with a vowel). The only word completely unaffected by class is the adverb "rusav", meaning down; and even some adverbs in Jaloskan are affected by class. However, more often than not, telling noun class is actually rather simple if one knows the definition of a word.

Physical: Refers to any non-living inanimate object, or to people. Whenever somebody says something about themselves or another person, they use the physical form of a word. For example: Re vasel (I sing), La hilu vasel (the woman sings). The exact same form is also used for objects; as an example, La maton vasel (the rock sings).

Natural: Mostly refers to living things that are found in nature, like animals and plants. Due to noun classes being culturally determined, there are some anomalies; for example, "water" and "fire", although non-living, are both categorized as natural nouns.

Conceptual: Refers mostly to ideas and concepts. For example, riatu (morality), vaton (reason), and bevaj (right).

Spiritual: Refers to religious ideas and spiritual beings, such as bero (faith), orasat (altar), and shifu (spirit).

Neutral: Words that are neutral on their own are very rare. Very often, "neutral" is just the form of verbs, adjectives, and articles used to refer to multiple things with different classes. For example, Les vaton zes bimas tesen von she jadro (the reason and water are in the temple), where the neutral form is used.

As mentioned, the class of a noun most often affects the article, the conjugation of the verb, and the article(s) used. The articles and the vowel used in regular adjectives can be found below:

Physical: La/L' (definite), Lan (indefinite), -o (ex: banivo)

Natural: Ja/J' (definite), Jan (indefinite), -a (ex: baniva)

Conceptual: Fe/F' (definite), Fan (indefinite), -e (ex: banive)

Spiritual: She/Sh' (definite), San (indefinite), -i (ex: banivi)

Neutral: Les (definite), Len (indefinite), -u (ex: banivu)

Jaloskan has four forms of verbs: -ir verbs, -er verbs, -ar verbs, and irregular verbs. All verbs except for irregular verbs are conjugated according to noun class. Due to the fact that it also varies according to past, present, and future tense, here's a link to a verb for each ending with its conjugation chart.

-Lesmir (-ir)

-Vaser (-er)

-Bovar (-ar)

Class is very important in Jaloskan, and can be found in almost every part of the language. It is worth noting, however, that some verbs conjugate according to First Person/Second Person/Third Person/etc, rather than gender; here is an example of one such word.
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