Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

En réponse à Joe :


>IIRC, in some languages, each noun has a default number, which is
>changed by adding an affix(the same one, I belive, for changing singular
>to plural as plural to singular).  Now that's certainly odd.
Well, not exactly the same, but in my Maggel, masculine and neuter nouns 
are inherently singular, while feminine nouns are inherently plural 
(indefinite plural to be more exact. Maggel has two different plurals - and 
a dual ;)) -). So feminine nouns need an affix to become singular, rather 
than plural :) .

Examples (best seen in a monospace font):
igeid ['kEt]: a cat (masculine), gif ['gaIv]: (animal) legs (feminine)
singular:    igeid    ['kEt]    , gitfe  ['gaIvv@] : a cat, a leg
dual:        igeaidha ['k&atS@] , gifs   ['gaIvz]  : two cats, two legs
ind. plural: igeiisdi ['kUi,t*i], gif    ['gaIv]   : cats, legs
def. plural: igeiidim ['kUit@~m], ghouso ['g_jQVvV]: cats, legs

Pronunciations are in CXS, with the addition of [*] as a diacritic added to 
consonants to indicate consonant tenseness, a phenomenon of Maggel 
phonology which has no easy transcription in IPA. The difference between 
the indefinite and the definite plural is only about whether the actual 
amount is unknown or known, not about definiteness as we mean it (for that, 
Maggel has the definite article a(n)).

Note that I especially chose words that are regular both in number 
formation and in orthography. You can imagine that if those are regular 
(and regular words form but a plurality of cases in Maggel :)) ), how 
irregular words may look like, and why Maggelity has become a common word 
on this list ;))) .

Also, those are simple count nouns. Maggel has two other kinds of nouns, 
characterised by an absence of singular and dual forms. The first ones are 
mass nouns. Like in English, they represent substances that cannot normally 
be counted (but like in English there are strange cases :)) ). In form, 
they are always treated as plurals, and are in the indefinite plural or 
definite plural depending on whether we are talking about an indefinite 
amount or a well-measured one. The second kind of plural-only nouns are 
what I call simply "plural nouns", just to be even more unclear than Maggel 
already is :)) . Those are words that are grammatically plural but 
semantically singular. Unlike mass nouns they are countable. It's just that 
they are in form plural, if in meaning singular. Feminine plural words are 
special, because since they are feminine their basic form is the indefinite 
plural, but since they are plural nouns this plural form has a singular 
meaning :)) . An example of plural noun is the masculine "mesha" [m@'h*a]: 
a house, grammatically plural but semantically singular. To put it 
semantically in the plural, one has to add a separate mark of number (like 
"some", or an actual amount), which obliges to use the definite plural 
"meham" ['mEh@~m].

And then there are the words that come in natural pairs (like hands), which 
have two duals, the regular one to indicate an unassorted pair (like two 
right hands belonging to two different persons), and a dual called "natural 
dual" which indicates a natural pair (e.g. two hands belonging to a single 
person). To take the example of "hand" indeed (hfehl ['weIl], neuter), its 
regular dual is "ehfehlha" [i'weL@], and its natural dual is "eul" ['Uel] 
(the natural dual is always an irregular form, normally shorter than the 
regular dual).

Mix it all up, and you can imagine all the niceties this language can bring 
only with gender and number :)) (and I didn't even mention the object form 
nor the construct state ;)) ).

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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