Re: Conlangs in History

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Well, Japanese has no number distinctions at all.  And, there were no
> references to different pronouns by formality, but I guess it could
> exist in Galactic.  And as I said in my reply to Tom, there were clearly
> number distinctions in the 1st and 3rd person pronouns.  Also, at least
> some nouns, since there were things like "Ships?  Not just one ship?" or
> something to that effect.
Korean similarly doesn't have number distinction in plain vanilla nouns,
but if you want to
emphasize that it *is* a plural, you can specify numerals or circumlocute
(is that the term?):

sagwa isseo = there's an apple/(someone) has an apple
sagwa saegae isseo = there are 3 apples/(someone) has 3 apples
sagwa manhi isseo = there are many apples/(someone) has many apples

As for pronouns:

na (I)
uri (we--I'm not sure about inclusive/exclusive distinctions, though I
  *think* uri-dul may function as inclusive, "dul" being one of the two
  ways you can say "two" in Korean)
neo (you, informal/insulting, depending on context, and I think for formal
  you use the name with an appropriate honorific, or "3rd person," singular)
ninae-dul or neonae-dul (?) (you, informal/insulting, plural)

3rd person:
There isn't any, but you can use "jae" (variant? of this/that) for
singular and "jaenae-dul" for 3rd person plural.

The point being, you *could* have something like the way Korean appends
"two" to mean plural.  But I never got that far in the series, and that's
just one aspect that doesn't have anything to do with the lemonade example.

YHL