Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG]

In a message dated 05/21/2002 06.05.39 AM, John Cowan
(jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM) writes:

>Muke Tever scripsit:
>
>> But I think the zero plural can be extended to all fish?
>
>I don't think so.  "Herring", yes, "trout", yes; but "I caught five
>shark today"?  "The aquarium has six guppy"?  I don't think so.
    Oh uh, you gotta be kidding... I must be using English (abusing English)
then. I find myself saying "4 goldfish" (my house, the infamous "Spaz-za
Haus", has a fish-tank in the living room). I also find myself saying "five
buck", "2 shirt," etc. and getting odd stares...
    0_o?  and English is my L1! (well, sorta ... perhaps "Sino-English" is my
L1)

>Of course, there are also mass versions of fish names, referring to
>the fish as a food:  "I ate shark in San Francisco", but that is
>not the same thing at all.
    Because it's a classifying word (the exact term escapes me) ?

[BTW shark meat is fairly cheap in San Francisco and the Bay Area
::salivating as he types this::]

Hanuman Zhang
    ~
"When you lose a language,
it's like dropping a bomb on a museum." ~ Kenneth Hale
-----------~§~-----------
en legoset _ creolego _ =
    ¡ gwerra sumtotall-morda legotaxo!
    ¡ banc poli en-noxa legoplex !  creo legoplex !

trans-litteral-slice-ation into English:

in Creo-Lego word-set  <vocabulary>:
    War word-system sum-total(all)-death !
        <combat/fight linguistic extinction!>
    Save multiple in-danger language{s}!  Create language[s]!

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