Re: Inflections vs. Words [was Re: List of basic roots]
| From: | Joe Mondello <rugpretzel@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, June 14, 2000, 7:25 |
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In a message dated 6/14/00 1:20:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, steven@OLYWA.NET
writes:
> Palo nouns are inflected for six numbers; singular, plural, neutral,
> portional, mass, and unique. Nouns fall into different classes according
> to which numbers they take. Only adjectival nouns take all six numbers.
Rodeys makes similar distinctions in adjectival nouns through an unholy
alliance between genders and numbers:
txoy
old living thing
txof/txot
old woman/man
txí
old stuff
tx-í-a
old-MASS-PL
some old stuff
The partitive of anything in rodeys is formed by the mass-plural:
ga yo sogen
I-DAT want fish
I want a/the fish
ga yo sogen-í-a
I-DAT want fish-MASS-PL
I want some fish (more than one fish or fish meat)
Teyv xa-fajingdon-a sen-í-a xa
Dave know-Washingtonly-NV person-MASS-PL mental
Dave knows some people in Washington.
Where NV indicates a non-volitional verb.
Joe Mondello