Re: Number in Trentish

Quoting Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:

> On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 10:14:55 -0500, Muke Tever
> <alrivera@...> wrote:
>
> >I noticed this kind of English sentence:
> >
> >    There are mice in the house.
> >    There are mice in the corner.
> >
>
> It seems to me that in the first sentence, the speaker is actually
> qualifying the house. Sort of, there are two kinds of houses, those
> with mice and those without ones. S/he could say the same after having
> just seen exactly one mouse, and not knowing actually if there are
> more of them. It's not the quantity that matters, rather, the house's
> being not "mice-free".
>
> What do L1 speakers think?
I think we should be wary of making distinctions where none really
exist.  As a L1 speaker of English, I see no such distinction in my
dialect; at least, any such distinction would for me be purely semantic,
not grammatical.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>

             "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
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