Re: Nouns with arguments, verbs without arguments

Roger Mills scripsit:

> Looking at this, and taking Mathias' reply into account, it looks like tlazi
> might be considered a "classifier", as used in Indo., Chinese etc...but we
> have them too in Engl., just not as obligatorily.  "200 head of cattle" etc.
In short, all nouns in Chinese, etc., are mass nouns.

> If used alone, "200 head" could only be used if "cattle" were already
> presupposed in the discussion.
This is partly because of an English lexical gap: we have no generally
acceptable word for "member of _Bos taurus_", only the sex/age specific terms
"bull", "calf", "cow", "heifer", "steer", and "ox".

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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