The system of nominal classes in the Saliba Language

Sumario: One of the main features of the Saliba language is a distinct nominal class system thatestablishes a qualifying grammatical agreement along sentences. Those nominal classesbelong to worldview of the Saliba people, who classify the world around them into twolarge groups: animate and inanimate entities. The animate system incorporates gender andnumber characteristics into three categories: masculine, feminine, and plural or neuter. Theinanimate system splits into two categories: singular and plural. The singular inanimatefamily includes 22 nominal classes assorted according to their form, function, state, orconsistency. The plural inanimate family is subdivided into 18 variable classes. This classsystem has the name as its starting point and ramifies into new words that take several classmorphemes.