Re: New Romlang, unnamed

Shreyas Sampat wrote:
> Woohoo.  Comments?  How naturalistic is this?
Well, CL did tend towards SOV order, so the origin seems plausible.
Also, Ainu has a suffix -p(a) which indicates plurality of the object of
a transitive verb, or subject of an intransitive verb, for example,
komo/kompa (bend one thing/bend more than one thing), kor/korpa (have
one thing/have more than one thing), tura/turapa (accompany one
person/accompany more htan one person), ahun/ahup (exit (of one
person)/exit (more than one person))

As you can see, the suffix isn't completely predictable (komo -> kompa,
but tura -> turapa, and ahun -> ahup.  There's also some suppletive
forms, such as rayke/ronnu "kill", arpa/paye "go", an/oka(y) "exist"

However, in Ainu, this is optional, and is not used when plurality is
indicated with numbers, for example:
Pon pewrep tup cihok wa osippaas
Pon   pewrep tup ci-      hok wa  osip  -pa-as
Small bear   two 1Pl.excl-buy and return-PL-1Pl.excl
"We bought two small bears and returned"
No plurality marked on the first verb, because the object specifies
"two", but it is marked on the second, because there's no explicit
number.

Note: in first person, Ainu uses distinct affixes for intransitive verb,
transitive subject, and transitive object, 2nd and 3rd person use
identical forms for subject and object, regardless of transitivity, and
3rd person lacks any number agreement (null for singular and object;
first person also in the classical language, but that particular example
is from a modern colloquial dialect).

Altho, there are also times when -pa indicates plural of subject, for
example:

Iresu  yupi    iresu  sapo   i-    res  -pa hine oka   -an
Foster brother foster sister 1SObj-raise-PL and  be(PL)-1PL.intrans
My foster brother and my foster sister raised me and we were living.
(Classical language)

Sisam so kor  goza sinep hok-pa wa  arki
Japanese from mat  one   buy-PL and come(PL)
(They) bought one mat from a Japanese and came.
(A modern colloquial dialect)

From the Sakhalin dialect, here's an interesting example:
Orohko-utah ariki   -hci
Orokko-pl   come(pl)-PL
Orokkos came.
The verb "come" uses the suppletive plural form *and* the plural suffix,
but it's still optional in that dialect.

In the classical language, -pa could also indicate repetition of an
action, e.g.:

A-       ko-         tam-  etay-pa
1SG.subj-Applicative-sword-draw-iterative
"I drew the sword against [the surface of the bodies] many time"

A-       si-  kopa   -yar -pa
1SG.subj-refl-misread-caus-iterative
"I made myself misread earnestly" = "I pretended to be X earnestly"

So, if you want to mark plural objects, another way of doing that would
be to give the earlier form an affix that indicates repetition of an
action.

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