Re: Iltârer Nouns

At 02:15 PM Friday 5/4/01, you wrote:
>In a message dated 5/4/01 1:06:36 PM, tom@TELP.COM writes:
>
><< The collective plural, first and foremost, always has the sense of
>referring to an entire class of objects. So one would use it in sentences
>like "research show that dinosaurs are close relatives of birds" or "birds
>lay eggs".  >>
>
>     Ah, so this part right here makes reference to a superordinate category,
>of which all birds are a part, whereas the ordinary plural of "bird" might
>make reference to only the salient members, maybe the most prototypical
>members (e.g.: sparrows), or to a specific group of birds that one actually
>sees.
Right. The ordinary plural would be used in sentences like "did you see
those birds?" or "how many birds nest in your elm tree?"


><<Assuming that the collective plural of "bird" also has the
>archetypal connotation I described (hadn't really considered it
>specifically), I would imagine it being somewhat more narrow than the list
>of qualities you mention, according to whatever aspect of "birdness"
>captured the imagination of the Iltârer people; perhaps a meaning relating
>to flight and the freedom of living by instinct. That more abstract meaning
>would tend to apply when the noun was used metaphorically, in the
>referential case. "a person of birds" might be an Iltârer expression
>roughly equivalent to "a free spirit" in English idiom.>>
>
>     This is somewhat different, though.  It seems like the collective plural
>here makes an abstract noun out of whatever.  In that case, does it still
>have to be considered a plural?
I'm probably not entirely clear on this myself. Your questions are helping
me refine the idea. Thanks!

I think what I'm getting at is that the collective plural is always first
and foremost a number form of the base noun, but may (for many nouns, but
not all) acquire a secondary abstract meaning. So a statement like "Birds
(coll.) are blessed" would convey both a rather literal meaning (all birds,
actual and imagined, are divinely favored or fortunate) and a more abstract
meaning (to be like a bird, to have the qualities that are special to
birds, is a blessed thing). In English, we'd not be very inclined to let
these two senses overlap; we'd use a concrete noun in the first case and an
abstract noun in the second. In Iltârer, though, because of the
idealist/Platonic philosophical orientation of the culture, there is a
natural convergence of "birds" as the label for a class of creatures and
"birdness" as an abstraction. The literal meaning is primary, but the
abstract implication is never far behind for speakers of the language.

>   And could it be made into an adjective, or
>just by means of the genetive?  What I mean is, could you say, "He walks
>turtle(collective plural)-like".  In this case it's an adverb, and the
>collective plural of "turtle" would mean, in this particular case, slow.
Good example. The referential case can be used adverbially; word order
indicates it modifies the verb, rather than the noun. "He walks of
turtles". (Actually, in Iltârer symbolism, the turtle represents emotional
reclusiveness, stubbornness, and unwillingness to explore. So the sentence
would be taken to mean something like "He left with his mind unchanged."
But I digress.)

I probably need to clarify the difference between the abstract connotations
of the collective number and the metaphorical use of the referential case.
These are two ideas that dovetail congenially, but maybe the former is a
bit superfluous if I have the latter.

Cheers, Tom


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Tadfor Little            tom@telp.com
Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA)
Telperion Productions        www.telp.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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