Re: number marking

Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...> wrote:

> Last night, while I was dreaming my little dreamy dreams, I
> suddenly hit on an interesting way of expressing number, which
> I might use in a sketch for a new conlang that I've been working
> on.
Wish I had such dreams... No, wait, then I wouldn't have any
spare time when I'm awake. :) I'm only dreaming about user
interfaces and class inheritance trees these days.


> Nouns have up to three forms:
>
> (1) If the noun is plural, indefinite singular, generic, or non-
> referential, or if it's a mass noun, then it's unmarked.
What is non-referential?

>
> (2) If it's a definite singular count noun, it's marked with the
> suffix "-ma".
>
> (3) If it's a noun of high animacy (people, spirits, higher
> animals), then the definite plural may be optionally marked
> with the suffix "-ngan".
For the sake of naturality, I would mark these always, not
optionally (unmarked plural and marked singular doesn't look
good).

[snip]

I like this system! Especially the 'misadjusted' overlapping of
verb and noun marks.

> Question:  Has anybody else thought of a system like this?  Are
> there any natlangs that work this way?
Well, I guess there are some which mark nouns for these things
and also verbs with nominal prefixes -- but they're usually the
same. I'm just vaguely remembering here, so I might be wrong.

> Another possibility I'm exploring would be to have different
> definite singular and plural suffixes for different semantic classes
> (e.g. one for humans, one for animals, one for round things, etc.),
> which would drag the system closer to a Chinese-style classifier
> system...
Maybe if you keep broader categories (human/animal/little thing/
big thing) --> 'little' meaning you can hold it or carry it in your
hand...


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html