Re: USAGE: Count and mass nouns

PHILIPPE CAQUANT wrote:

> Interesting. But why do we have to divide nouns a priori into
> categories on that criterium ? Of course it might seem odd to say
> "dogs" as a mass for ex., but why should we exclude this possibility ?
> It is not impossible for the brain to conceive a dog-mass. If we're
> free to add any (combination of) affixes to any noun, we won't
> restrain the possibilities of what we can express, even if seldom.

IIRC, in some languages, each noun has a default number, which is
changed by adding an affix(the same one, I belive, for changing singular
to plural as plural to singular).  Now that's certainly odd.

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