Re: Number in Trentish

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.
>
>And, just for the sake of evil, felt like disambiguating them.
>
>"What's to disambiguate?" you say!  Well, when we talk about 'mice in the
>house', we don't place them anywhere, so long as they're in there: there could
>be mice in my sock drawer, grandma's chest in the attic, and at the computer
>desk.  But with 'mice in the corner', we place them together.  (The only reason
>for this is because the meaning of 'corner' makes it necessary--and the example
>easier.)
Hmm.... I've been gradually introducing plural forms to Tirèlhat. The usual
way of indicating plural is with a prefix on the verb and a different form
of the case marker.

Vëgavithaz saj kuvivi vè ruba.
vë-gavi -tha-z saj    kuvivi      vè  ruba
3p-exist       NOM.PL house-mouse LOC house

But Tirèlhat also has plural suffixes used with certain words, like the
collective plural -dhaj (as in a flock of starlings "margadhaj", or a swarm
of free-tailed bats "parzdhaj"). There's also the "mass plural" -èk for
collections of small things considered as a mass: "sulèk" (beans) or
"fÿorhèk" (the infamous "chad" from punch-card ballots), and the "generic
plural" -az which refers to all beings of the same kind ("rojaz" =
humankind, "nikaz" = mousekind). I have a feeling that Tirèlhat has a lot
more plural-type suffixes that I haven't discovered yet.

There's also a difference between "in" the house and "in" the corner, but
Tirèlhat can use a simple locative case for both of them.

I like the idea of a small-group plural. I think I could use something like
that in Tirèlhat:

Vëgavithaz sè kuvivisath vè xhigh.
vë-gavi -tha-z sè  kuvivi     -sath vè  xhigh
3p-exist       NOM house-mouse-SGPL LOC corner

(Note that, just to be confusing, plural endings require a plural prefix on
the verb to agree with them, but the case marker is in the singular form!)

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