Re: THEORY: Number and animacy

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 18:10:28 -0600
Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:

> On Nov 7, 2006, at 1:29 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know of a natlang which distinguishes
> > number for animate, but not for inanimate nouns?
> >
> >
> > /BP 8^)>
>
> One view of Proto-Indo-European says that its neuter plural (along
> with the feminine singular, which is very close formally) was
> originally a kind of collective formed from its base by derivation,
> rather than by inflection.  I'm not sure how mainstream a view this
> is or what evidence there is for it, but I've always thought it was
> a cool idea.  I'm assuming then, although I'm not sure, that the
> neuter "singular" could have, according to this theory, been used to
> refer to either a single or multiple entities.
I've certainly heard this before as well, and was under the impression,
without looking for sources, that this was relatively well accepted.
You can take as evidence for it in Ancient Greek, for example, neuter
plurals have their own form for the nominative and accusative in -a,
but in the singular are modeled after the masculine accusative ending
in -on, as well as the oblique case markings being the same.  I'm pretty
sure there are analogs in other daughter laungages as well, but it's
late and I'm too lazy to look them up.

- --
Mohan Sud
«C'est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose,
       qui fait ta rose si importante»
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFFUr0at1avdCyvebkRAotcAJ0bE1DRquFkRXnNixu3fMYlgGI1igCfQECS
zTfzEYLO20m5c8+FBvi/YpU=
=6iiA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----