Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

--- Now PHILIPPE CAQUANT went a courtin an he did
write, ah hah; PHILIPPE CAQUANT went a courtin an
he did write, pen an inkpot at his side, ah hah,
ah hah, ah hah:

> Interesting. But why do we have to divide nouns
> a priori into categories on that criterium ?
Course not. I prefer to divide my nouns into one
or more categories, thus giving rise to lots of
declensions.

> Of
> course it might seem odd to say "dogs" as a
> mass for ex.,
Why?

> but why should we exclude this
> possibility ?
You don't have to exclude any possibility.

> (What is Talarian ?)
Indo-Hittite conlang. Its nouns come in animate
and inanimate declensions; numbers are singular,
dual, collective/mass. Plural is not well
understood (kind of halfway between English and
Mandarin). Nouns decline in eight cases for the
singular and four for the dual and plural; only
animate nouns may take agent forms (nominative,
accusative), so inanimate nouns that are
sensically animate take a secondary set of
endings that allow them temporary agency. [In
reality, inanimate nouns only have a couple
actual case forms - most all declension in those
nouns is bare stems.]

For a sample, see the third language down in my
current sig:

ççoç peparcti Çaratostariyyas: his hanaras ossta?
icom acâ, alohostanoççexomes, takam maxamâsanar
a-hawisesâ.

thus spake Zarathustra: who man be-thou? him I,
in-all-this-bone-world, thee of-great-honor
saw(1s).

Or, "So asked Zarathustra: who are thou, whom
I've seen most honoured in the material world?"

Zarathustra is an animate noun (and has -as for
the nom. s.); hanaras is as well.
Alohostanoççexomar is an inanimate noun, of which
-es is the genitive. Talarian has no adjectives;
rather, inanimate nouns are used attributively:
maxamâsanar is one such. -ar is the stem.

Padraic.



=====
â-dim peresatî Zarathustrô: ko-nare ahî?  yim azem vîshpahe aŋhêuš
astvatô sraêštem dâdaresa.

â-dim prcchat Jarathustrah: ko nara asi? yam aham vîśvasya âsoh
asthivatah śrestham dadarśa.

ççoç peparcti Çaratostariyyas: his hanaras ossta? icom acâ,
alohostanoççexomes, takam maxamâsanar a-hawisesâ.
    -- Yasna ix

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