Quoting Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>:
> --- Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> did
> screeve:
>
> > Quoting Philippe Caquant
> > <herodote92@...>:
> >
> > > But how can we conceive verbs like "to
> > > gather" or "to disperse" without the notion
> > > of plural
> > > ? Those verbs seem to BE plural in essence,
> > > they require a plural subject.
> >
> > You mean the concept of number, don't you?
> >
> > I assume you're talking about the intransitive
> > versions of those verbs?
>
> If so, I don't see how number could enter it at
> all. The act of gathering or dispersing can take
> place without ever having gathered or dispersed
> anything.
Explain that again? English grammar being what it is, number will rear its
sibilant head as soon as count nouns are involved, and intr "to gather"
and "to disperse" can certainly take count nouns as subjects. (Are there any
English verbs that can't take both count and mass nouns as subjects?)
> > As
> > long as the subject is to be a count noun, the
> > it pretty much has to be
> > plural, it seems. But if it's mass, then the
> > sg/pl contrast is simply
> > transcended. "Dust gathered in the unused
> > rooms" or whatever.
>
> Also with change of voice, there. [Like "soup
> cooks".]
Change of voice with regard to what?
Andreas