Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

As for quantifying in general, my idea is a little bit
complex, but i'm thinking more of a computer-oriented
language than of a language to be really spoken by
people.

It goes like this. If you have to indicate a scalar
value, so you just indicate what scale you decide to
use, and what is the value on that scale. Scales
themselves would be defined in the lexicon. You could
use discrete or continuous scales (this being part of
the definition of the scale).

For ex: a simple polarity No / Yes can be represented
as a discrete scale with only 2 degrees, 0 and 1 (or
-1 and 1, or...)

An appreciation like "not at all / rather not / more
or less / rather yes / yes, absolutely" can be
represented by a discrete scale of 5 degrees (for ex,
-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). The same for "none / few / some /
many / all" (which includes your notion of "paucal", I
think).

An information like "50,01% of the electors chose M.X"
would use a continuous scale, from 0 to 100, and the
value would be 50,01.

There also could be open scales, like in case of a
earthquake (ex: 6,3 on Richter scale).

--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
>
> ObConlang, in the first person, my Uatakassi has
> singular, dual
> (specifically inclusive), paucal, and plural.  For
> dual-exclusive, the
> paucal is also used.
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

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

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