Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language

--- Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
wrote:

> I know subsets can contain one or no members.... I
> was just worrying
> about the fact that if you differentiate between
> subsets and elements,
> this doesn't necessarily distinguish between
> singular and plural... so
> if I incorporated this into a language (in some way)
> then I'd need to
> make number optional, or marked in a separate way
> (I'm addicted to
> compulsory number marking lol.... is there a number
> marking anonymous?)
I more or less can see the problem, but I think we
should discuss on concrete examples. Anyway, IMO, when
making a conlang, one should always preserve the
possibility of leaving a feature optional. For ex, if
you have a simple distinction singular / plural, it
could be wise to add a third possibility: undefined
(and possibly more, like: I know how many, but I won't
tell, etc.) If I'm not mistaken, Basque uses an
undefined number ("one or several"). If we look at XML
specifications for ex, we can see how it manages
cardinality. There is a symbol (I of course forgot
which one) meaning "0, 1 or several", another meaning
"1 or several", another meaning "0 or 1", and if I
remember, adding nothing means "1 and only 1". This
looks very fundamental.

We also find in some computer languages the concept of
"null", for ex, "true / false" is no more simply
binary, it becomes "trinary" (or ternary ?): true,
false or null. So I would always preserve at least one
possibility for "undefined" in every opposition (and
probably, express this "undefined" by using no mark at
all). For ex, male / female: if you see a mouse
running on the floor, I guess you'll find it hard to
decide, without closer examination, if it's a male or
a female one. Clearly here we should have the
possibilities of saying: a male mouse, a female mouse,
or a mouse of undefined sex (or gender). French says
"la souris" but "le chat", while German and Russian
both say "la souris" and "la chat". The gender has
absolutely no meaning, because "la souris" can be male
while "le chat" can be female. This is a natlang
aberration.


> >(BTW, another interesting question: when I say:
> "The
> >Americans elected a President named Bush", "The
> >Americans walked on the Moon", and "The Americans
> >fought against each other during Secession War"),
> what
> >does "the Americans" mean in each case ? Seems they
> >are different sets, or subsets).
> >
> >
> The problem of plurality seems more difficult than I
> thought at first.
> What a plural argument means seems to vary from verb
> to verb and from
> argument to argument. Using your example, "elected"
> very strongly
> suggests that "the americans" performed the act
> together, since to elect
> someone you all have to vote in the same election.
> But in some other
> examples, the implication is different... perhaps
> this varies from verb
> to verb, or is simply implied by the situation and
> can vary even when
> the verb is the same?
I can see the problem at that level more or less like
this :
- "the Americans" can mean the whole of the (living)
Americans, at the moment I speak
- "the Americans" can mean a subset or the previous
(ex: the ones who walked on the Moon are actually very
few), or "the majority of them", or "the majority of a
subset of them" (in case of elections)
- "the Americans" can be considered as a continuum,
some of them being already dead, others still alive
- "the Americans" can mean a subset of the previous
- "the Americans" can mean "historical Americans" (all
dead already, "die damaligen Amerikaner"), or a subset
of them.

So the two main concepts here seem to be: 1/ the whole
or a subset (or: the majority); 2/ contemporaneity or
not.

I don't speak Hopi neither, I just mentioned the Whorf
(was it Whorf ?) theory saying that the Hopis don't
consider that, for ex, "three" is the same thing in
"three men" and "three days". The idea was that there
cannot be such a thing as "three days", it is three
times the same day. This clearly rejoins the previous
discussion: do we consider that "three" must be "three
at the same time", or that a time factor can be
included in the concept ? We could also wonder: is
"three" the same thing if the three objects are
present together, or if some of them are not in sight
? (I have three apples at this very moment, two of
them you can see because I hold them in my hands, the
third one being hidden in my drawer) ? So we could
think that there is such a thing as "three in
presence", "three in the same moment", "three in
history"... The idea that these are all "three" is an
abstraction, I guess that might not be so obvious for
everybody in the world.

 *sigh* I'm
> going to go away now
> and create some looney language, or just go quietly
> insane myself lol....
Don't worry, I already went insane a long time ago :-)
Welcome to the club.



=====
Philippe Caquant


Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intellegor illis (Ovidius).

Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo (Horatius).

Interdum stultus opportune loquitur (Henry Fielding).

Scire leges non hoc est verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem (Somebody).

Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur (Somebody else).

Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).


		
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com

Reply