Re: ANADEWISM? Plural only marked in animates

On Wednesday 04 May 2005 03:24 pm, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Does anyone know if there is an ANADEWISM for marking
> plurality only in animates?
>
> --
>
> /BP 8^)>
> --
> Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
>
>          Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
>                                              (Tacitus)
>
Japanese and Chinese only have plural markers for people. So the looser
restriction of animates is not unlikely

I found a very interesting article on it (Japanese and Chinese plurals) a
couple of months ago when I was googling to find out if there are semantic
differences between -ra and -tachi when applied to the same pronouns*, but I
apparently didn't bookmark it.

[*]I think it worked out to formality/politeness distinctions rather than
semantics as such: the politer terms take -tachi, the really rude ones only
take -ra, and the mid-range ones can fine-tune things by using either. My
curiosity was initially piqued by an anime character who used both omaera and
omaetachi in different contexts.

--
Elyse Grasso

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