Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

--- PHILIPPE CAQUANT <herodote92@...>
scrievit an scraulit:

> I verified: "peas", like French "(petits)
> pois", comes from Latin "pisum". In ancient
> French, it has been "peis" too. So we can
> understand that people thought it was a plural.
> We also do say "des pois" (plural). (In
> Britonnic: piz bihan = "pea little", being a
> collective). But what about "des lentilles ?"
I don't know. I never had occasion to consider a
single kernel like that. Just lentils - like
pease or corn - a mass noun.

> In Portuguese, the word for "noodles, macaroni"
> (French: des pâtes) is "massa", with is
> singular, apparently a collective too. All this
> doesn't seem to obey to real rules.
Macaroni is mass in English. To talk about one,
you'd have to say "a piece of elbow macaroni".
Lasagna, fettucini, rigatoni - they're all mass.

"A macaroni", like "a water", is a container with
a mass of mac & cheese in.

> So I would suggest that a conlang should have
> facultative markers:
> - one to express mass vs. count
> - one to express collective vs. singulative
> - one to express plural vs. singular (and if
> possible, also dual)
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...

> The implicit semes would be stored in the
> lexicon, and the markers would be used in case
> one wants to use the word not in the implicit
> meaning, or distinguish between two meanings
> equally possible (ambiguity). The absence of
> markers would mean, either that one accepts the
> implicit semes, or that one wants to remain
> ambiguous.
>
> They could be several markers associated (like
> in: the plural of a singulative - several
> single blades of grass).
As in several individuals v. a single group. ;)

Padraic.



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