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Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

From:Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>
Date:Friday, January 16, 2004, 3:51
--- 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. ===== 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/> .

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PHILIPPE CAQUANT <herodote92@...>