Re: QUESTION: types of plurals, few/many

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Roger Mills
| Subject: Re: QUESTION: types of plurals, few/many
|
| Mike Karapcik wrote:
| >        One thing that I am planning on is having three
| > numbers for nouns
| >and verb tenses: single, small plural, and large plural.
|
  8<  snip  >8
| >        I can already see one thing coming out of this:
| >        It would be natural (in my opinion) for those using
| such a language
| >to use the small plural to describe those with traits,
| lifestyles, beliefs,
| >etc. that one dislikes, finds distasteful, or finds completely
| unacceptable.
|
| (though personally some of the implications of this make me squirm)
| Seems a logical development from "a few" > insufficient, not enough >
| wanting in some respect > not what We expect > not what We approve of.
|
| Would your "small plural" become
| all-pejorative/all-the-time, or could it
| continue to be used neutrally where necessary? Or pejorative only for
| people, taboo items etc.?
|

        What I thought of was a cycling or change of pronouns.
        There is a similar case in Japanese. The 2nd person pronouns tend to
change in how honorific / pejorative they are over time. For example, "kimi"
was very honorific about 100-80 years ago. Then, it slid down and became
respectful. When I took Japanese about 11 years ago, the sensei (who worked
in Tokyo for 7 years, and his wife was from Hokkaido) said that "kimi" was a
step down from the speaker. It's something people use when speaking with
custodians, menial laborers, or someone they are annoyed with. A friend of
mine is taking Japanese now (starting level 5 in the fall, and his sensei is
from Japan), and he says "kimi" is very informal and casual, often used
among young friends (*not* a superior).
        Similarly, "kisama" is used in some old poetry (I think he said 300
years old or so) as a respectful form of address. Now, while it's one of the
second person pronouns, it's usually translated as "bastard" or "you,
a**hole".

        Anyway, what I figured is that the paucal plural would regularly be
used to discus those who are marginalized or disliked. After a while, the
pronoun could gain a marginal connotation. Since the feature is too
ingrained into the language to drop the second person paucal number (and
possibly third person), the pronoun would fall into disuse in favor of
another that would start to rise. The old 2pp pronoun would be the "'you'
with a scowl" pronoun.

        The number itself would (probably) not gain a pejorative
connotation, since it's used for nouns and verbs and such. Just the words
themselves that you use to describe "them" would change the connotation.

        (I recently finished the book "Historical Linguistics", very good,
which had a section on lexical changes due to pejorization. That's why the
idea stuck out.)

        Thanks,
                Mike

______________________________________
Mike Karapcik   *       Tampa, FL
Network Analyst *       USF campus
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center
ConlangCode: v1.1 CIT !h+ !u cG:M:R:S:G a+ y n30:3
B+++/R:Wic A+ E+ N1 Is/d K ia-:+ p-- s- m o P S----

Replies