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Re: QUESTION: types of plurals, few/many

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Thursday, June 20, 2002, 11:07
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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Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>