Re: CHAT: Colectives (Re: CHAT: use of "they")

Carlos Thompson wrote:

>Well.  One of my most frequent errors in English is the use of some plurals
>I count as collectives in Spanish, like "people".  When I learned the word
>"people" I learned as translation of "gente" which is a colective in
>Spanish, and not as plural for "person".  If I'm not mistaken, "people" is
>both a plural and a colective, and usually takes the plural form of a verb:
>"people are..."
That was one of my frequent mistakes when I first learned English -- nowadays
I don't make it usually, but I still have to *think* before using the plural.

>Is there another regular way of treating colectives in your conlangs?
>Regular approaches?  Irregular ones?  Anybody knows how the -aro sufix in
>Esperanto works?
In Draseleq you have four numbers:

* Singular (uninflected form, more or less like English or Spanish singular)
* Unique singular: this is used for unique, really "singular" things,
especially in titles; the inflection also serves as a noun ending from
verbal roots.
* Plural (no special thing here)
* Group plural: this forms collective plural forms such "people" in English,
not like _gente_ in Spanish (the verb uses plural form). It's also used for
natural groups such as fingers, toes, hands, eyes, and for tightly bound
groups or things that belong together (_dra'selhadh_ "the ones who crossed",
_i'danhadh_ "hands (both, of the same person)", _kladn ma^shadh_ "the Two Trees").

Some of these group plurals have become collectives in slightly different
forms:

_renhadh_ "(the) men" (in a certain group)
_renadh_  "humanity"


--Pablo Flores
______________________________________________________________________
: Elmallalath idgrivar : ("Back luck always has a chance")

(Rough equivalent to Murphy's Law)
<http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/1021/draseleq.html>

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