Re: QUESTION: types of plurals, few/many

On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 08:36:10AM +0100, Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
>  --- Marcus Smith wrote:
>
> > In his typology of Number systems, Greville Corbett distinguishes:
> > singular (1)
> > dual    (2)
> > trial   (3)
> > paucal  (a few)
> > plural  (more than 1, or more than indicated by any more specific numbers)
> > greater plural  (an excessive amount, or all the X in the world)
>
> That's all very nice indeed, but I feel that in such a rich system this one may
> not fail:
> nullar (0)
[snip]

Heh, that sounds like an Ebisedian-inspired statement ;-)

OK, so other conlangs have come up with nullars before. But I don't know
of any natlangs that have a nullar, though. It seems to be a conlang
phenomenon. (Perhaps it might have something to do with the fact that most
cultures, before the scientific age, don't even have a notion of
"zero-ness".)


T

--
I haven't lost my mind: it's backed up on tapes -- CompuMan

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