Spoken Thoughts

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Dan Sulani wrote:

>     In my conlang, rtemmu, the articles are suffixed to the number
> which precedes the word for something countable. If the word
> signifies something of the "mass" type, no article is used.
JOOC, has anyone used plural forms of mass nouns to mean something
somewhat different than the singular form?  I was intrigued by Wheelock
saying that copia, -ae is "abundance" or "supply," and copiae, -arum
meaning "supplies, troops, forces", but  I don't know that the Romans
actually thought of it in these terms.  Maybe it was obvious to them tha
the plural of supply or abundance would be suplies, troops, or for ces.  :-)

>     In addition to the indefinite and definite articles, "-uh" and "-luh",
> rtemmu
> also has an "indeterminant" article, "-nuh", which is used for talking about
> something of which one instance of it is definitely known, but whether the
> instance is unique or not is not known.

What a lovely idea!  :-)  I bet scientists would like it.

YHL