Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

Interesting. But why do we have to divide nouns a priori into categories on that criterium
? Of course it might seem odd to say "dogs" as a mass for ex., but why should
we exclude this possibility ? It is not impossible for the brain to conceive a
dog-mass. If we're free to add any (combination of) affixes to any noun, we
won't restrain the possibilities of what we can express, even if seldom.

(What is Talarian ?)

Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...> wrote:
I guess you could (I'd never say "should"!).
Perhaps, rather than tack six distinct affices to
each noun, you could devise "genders" or some
other category that count nouns go in (where they
would receive number and collective
terminations); another for mass nouns (which
wouldn't need number or collective terminations);
and perhaps one for the bisexual nouns who can go
one way or the other?

Such as:

I II III

sing hansiz hapasaz
pl hanriz haparaz
coll hannas
MASS pas

(dog) (pease) (pea, peas)

Thus, -z marks the nominative (s. & pl.); -s the
collective; -/ the mass; prothetic syllable the
cross-over category, for those nouns that can.

Such a distinction might be neat for Talarian,
which likes to distinguish all sorts of weird
things; and already has singular, plural,
collextive and singulative categories...



Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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