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Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

From:Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>
Date:Saturday, January 17, 2004, 1:08
--- 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 a&#331;hêuš astvatô sraêštem dâdaresa. â-dim prcchat Jarathustrah: ko nara asi? yam aham vî&#347;vasya âsoh asthivatah &#347;restham dadar&#347;a. ççoç peparcti Çaratostariyyas: his hanaras ossta? icom acâ, alohostanoççexomes, takam maxamâsanar a-hawisesâ. -- Yasna ix -- Ill Bethisad -- <http://www.geocities.com/elemtilas/ill_bethisad> Come visit The World! -- <http://www.geocities.com/hawessos/> .