Re: R: New Idea? Was(YAC: a couple of questions)

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Mangiat wrote:

> But if, in a language as Chinese, i.e., where there is no sing-pl
> distinction, the numeral 'one' begins to be suffixed to nouns to mark their
> sing. form we'd have a marked sing. versus an unmarked plur. Here's an
> exemple with a Chinese-like made up numeral (don't remember the word for
> 'one'):
>
> yün = one
> ren = man
>
> renyün = man    versus    ren = men
>
> What do you think?
It seems possible. The question I have though, is why should 'one' be
suffixed to singulars in the first place? I could see using it as an
indefinite article, in which case it wouldn't be applied to definite
singulars. If it just started being used to distinguish singular from
plural to avoid ambiguity, I'm not sure why the singular would get a
special suffix as opposed to the plural.

Marcus