Re: Plurality

Hello,

> An interesting thought occurred to me today. I've noticed that in
> languages that mark number on the verb, the number agrees
> with the number
> of the subject/agent. But has anyone thought about marking
> the number of
> the *object* on the verb instead? How possible is it to have the verb
> agree with the subject on person, but agree with the *object*
> on number?
[...]

> Expecting an anadewism, :-)
You knew you'd get one, did you? :-)

Tundra Nenets (the verbal morphology whereof is the subject of my
current term paper) does exactly this.

It has three stems and four sets of affixes which mark the person and
number of the agent. They are distributed as follows.

Conj.   No. of obj.     Stem    Affix set
Subj.   n/a             I       I
        SG              I       II
Obj.    DU              II      III
        PL              III     III
Refl.   n/a             III     IV

It could have easily done with only three affix sets, as can be seen,
but such is life :-)

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Is mall a mharcaicheas am fear a bheachdaicheas
                 --Scottish proverb