Re: Biwa (was: YAC: ...) (slightly off-topic)

Mikael skrev:

> Math-freak as I am, I wound up with a Senior College-level
> (B-uppsats) essay on Fermat's last theorem and the maths
> involved with it... :-) I actually got off to a congress with
> it :-)
In highschool? I'm impressed!

> The story behind the Daharran is that they were once the pets of an
> __ANCIENT__ interstellar civilisation, that transcended beyond all
> recognition, and as the last prank they played on the universe in
> general, they uplifted their pets (i.e. through diverse means granted
> them intelligence and a technological civilisation). The number _three_
> is extremely prevalent throughout their culture, as a practical joke
> from their creators; and thus they
> a) have three numeri, and
> b) distinguish triplets.
>
> Thus, singular/dual, trial and plural.
Haha! That's brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. One of the best
internal explanations I've ever read. :)

> I seem to have a wild fascination at the moment for absurd amounts of
> tenses, moods etc etc and conjugation tables that would drive any sane
> person (i.e. _NOT_ me :-) out of their minds. :-)
A compling friend of mine, Jens, who was on this list for a short
while, created Desperato. It had no regular verbs (all with suppletive
totally unexpected forms), six numbers of which one was called
"fractional", and about a million tenses, moods and aspects. It really
deserved its name.

daniel