Re: Feminization of plurals?

German, for one. 'Die' is both the feminine singular, and the plural
definite article.

'Das Buch' (the book NEUTER)
'Die Bücher' (the books)

'Der Baum' (the tree MASCULINE)
'Die Bäume' (the trees)

'Die Katz' (the cat FEMININE)
'Die Katzen' (the cats)

Now, the plural had differentiated gender back in the old days, but the
plural articles collapsed into a form identical to the feminine singular at
some point.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Adnan Majid <dsamajid@...> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on some parallels I see between
> Arabic and Latin in the grammar of plurals. In Arabic for instance, the
> 'broken' plurals of object nouns - 'kutub' (books), 'wujuh' (faces),
> 'anfus'
> (souls), etc. - are used as though they are grammatically feminine and
> singular rather than plural. It recently struck me that the plurals of
> neuter Latin nouns in the nominative/accusative case - 'nomina' (names),
> 'corda' (hearts), 'dona' (gifts), etc. - can be said to look fairly
> 'feminine singular' as well.
>
> I was wondering whether anyone knew of other examples in natural languages
> where the plurals of neuter/object nouns take on some sort of 'feminine
> singular' persona, so to speak. I'm thinking of incorporating such a
> feature
> into my Latin/Greek based conlang. Has anyone tried this before?
>
> Thanks, and take care!
>
> Adnan
>

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