Re: Adopting a plural

On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 19:12:55 -0400, Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...> wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 16:35:00 -0400, Ben Poplawski <thebassplayer@...>
> wrote:
>> That's not true. For pronouns Japanese has a special plural ending -tachi,
>> watashi "I" > watashitachi "we", anata "thou" > anatatachi "ye" (to use the
>> original English usages). Occasionally you'll see reduplication for emphasis
>> and plurals, like the rare ware(?) "I" > wareware "we".
>
> That doesn't count as a plural as it is practically used EXCLUSIVELY used
> for pronouns. You can't something call a plural if it can only be used for
> four words: watashi (I), anata (you), kare (he), kanojo (she).
> That's it. Sometimes it might be added to the name of a person who is the
> leader of a group to denote that group, but it's impossible to use it
> commonly for other words, so it really can't be called a "plural".
It's called a plural because that's its function. It's not a _paradigmatic_ plural
as it is in English and other European languages, but that doesn't make it any
less a plural marker.

(And the original question was for a situation exactly like this, where there is no
paradigmatic plural, but a plural marker is being imported, so the example fits
just fine here.)

	*Muke!
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