Re: No plural morpheme

From: Chris Rettstatt <rettstatt@...>

> I'm not sure about Japanese, but I know Chinese does this, and it
> seems to have worked pretty well for them for a very long time.
> On Nov 24, 2007 6:34 AM, caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
> > I'm trying to keep Senjecan grammar as uncluttered as possible.  I
> > thought that I might not use a plural morpheme if the plurality of the
> > noun was obvious as when, say, a number qualified the noun.
> > What are your experiences with this in either a natlang or your
> > conlang?  I believe that Japanese does this.
To my way of thinking, Chinese and Japanese (and I'd imagine Korean and probably
some other Asian languages) don't really have grammatical plural. That said,
let me qualify:

Mandarin has the plural suffix, "-men2" (usually in the neutral tone, but sometimes
second tone, at least in Taiwan), obligatory with personal pronouns:

wo3  I   wo3men  we
ni3  you  ni3men  you guys
ta1 he/she/it  ta1men they

optional with other nouns referring to humans:

ren2men people (the only monosyllabic noun that can take the suffix)
hai2zimen children
lao3shi1men teachers
tong2zhi4men comrades
et alia

Usage is extremely limited. Analogously in Cantonese is "-dei6":

ngoh5 I  ngoh5dei6 we
lei5 you  lei5dei6  you guys
kui5 he/she/it  kui5dei6 they

yan4dei6 people

but I don't think other possibilities exist, limiting it further than "-men2".

Shanghainese and Taiwanese don't even have this; plural pronouns are different words.

I suppose the Mandarin classifier, "yi1xie1", (Cantonese: "yat1di1" ?), "a
few/several" compels one to think in terms of plural, but beyond that, I don't
think Chinese really marks plurality.

So, too, with Japanese. "-tachi" with pronouns:

watashi I watashitachi we
anata you anatatachi you guys

optionally with humans:

joseitachi women

but also with animals and even plants (rare):

inutachi dogs
shokubutsutachi plants

"-domo", used in a deprecatory sense:

watashidomo we humble ones

"-gata", used in an honorific sense:

anatagata you esteemed ones

reduplication with a handful of nouns for an indeterminate plural:

hitobito people
yamayama mountains
wareware we

None of this is what I understood Charlie to mean with regard to Senjecan. What
came to *my* mind was Hungarian, which does mark grammatical plural on nouns
and verbs, unless the noun is modified by a number or words like "sok (many),"
"kev