Re: Adopting a plural

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".

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