Re: Singular Pluralities

I meant to send this post to the whole list, but it went only to Wes :(( .
Sorry!

En réponse à Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...>:

> Singular Pluralities
>
> One house stands alone, but a town is full of hice;
> A rouse grain starves me, I need a bag of rice;
> While monogamy's the habit of only one woufe,
> Polygamy's the opposite, of having several wife;
> And one louse makes me scratch,
> But it's lousy with lots of lice;
> There's only one mousetrap,
> But oh too many mice.
>
Lovely! :)) Makes me want to use all those plurals in my everyday life :))) .

> Read and Enjoy!  Any conlangs with similar broken/internal
> pluralizations?
>
I know it's getting boring, but again Maggel is specialist in those
things ;))) . And since it has not two but four numbers (singular, dual,
unnumbered plural and numbered plural), it adds to the fun :)) (that, and the
fact that the feminine nouns' base form is not the singular but the unnumbered
plural ;))) ). Let me give a few examples (all phonetic realisations in X-SAMPA
with the usual modifications: ' for primary stress, & for ae-ligature, and with
* marking "tension" of the previous consonant):
igeid ['kEt]: a cat (masculine)
igeaidha ['k&atS@]: two cats
igeiisdi ['kUit*I]: cats (unnumbered)
igeiidim ['kUit@~m]: cats (numbered)

ragft ['r\a~N]: women (unnumbered, feminine)
rim ['r\E~]: a woman
rajms ['r\a~nz]: two women
iragft ['xa~N]: women (numbered)

biirh ['bIx_j]: a dog (neuter)
ebuira [E'bYx@]: two dogs
ebuir [E'bYx]: dogs (unnumbered)
ebiir [E'bIx]: dogs (numbered)

Well, among those three examples, one is completely regular, while the other
two are irregular. Who will be able to guess which is which? ;)))) (it's
actually quite simple and can be answered easily although I didn't give other
examples :)) )

In Maggel, it's nouns without internal alternations which are exceptional!!! :))

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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