Feminization of plurals?
From: | Adnan Majid <dsamajid@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 3:17 |
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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