Re: verbs = nouns?

Nik Taylor wrote:

>Marcus Smith wrote:
> > You are in good company. Ives Goddard, a famous American Indianist, refuses
> > to believe that languages can treat numbers like verbs, even though many
> > American Indian languages he works on do so.
>
>Then how does he explain numbers in those languages?
Whoa! Big mistake! Not Ives Goddard. I meant William Bright.

I really don't know what Bright says about them since I've never read
anything by him addressing this issue. I know his opinion on the matter
because of a discussion I had in a class about his article in Encyclopedia
Britannica. He discusses some of the areal traits of northern American
Indian languages, and fails to mention the common trait that numbers are
verbs. When I asked why that one wasn't included (having read about it
elsewhere), the Prof told us that Bright didn't believe in numbers as
verbs. I think the prof's exact words were "He can't believe that numbers
could be verbs".




Marcus Smith

"Sit down before fact as a little child,
be prepared to give up every preconceived notion,
follow humbly wherever and to whatsoever abysses Nature leads,
or you shall learn nothing."
                -- Thomas Huxley