Re: No pronoun, no article

En réponse à Nik Taylor :


>I would consider it a plural that has other functions.
I'd rather consider it a suffix meaning normally "and others" and which has 
a derived meaning of plural. After all, while I can imagine deriving the 
meaning "plural" from the meaning "and others", I can't think of the 
opposite one as a likely derivation. Language usually go from the concrete 
to the abstract, and thus it is more meaningful to put concrete meanings in 
the center with abstract meanings in the periphery, rather than the 
opposite (especially since -tachi is not that common as a plural anyway :) ).

>At any rate, there is the archaic -ra used with pronouns, and certain
>nouns have plural forms formed by reduplication, like hito -> hitobito
>(person/people), shima -> shimajima (island(s)), etc.
Neither being productive anyway, so we can still safely say that Japanese 
doesn't have a plural *per se*. It does have ways to render the plural 
meaning when it is really necessary, but then French does have ways to 
indicate precise politeness when necessary, and yet nobody will ever claim 
that French has grammaticalised politeness like Japanese does! :)) My point 
here is that plural is not a grammatical notion in Japanese, but a 
derivative and lexical one. And as such we can safely say that Japanese 
doesn't have a plural in the usual accepted meaning of the word.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

Reply