Re: indefinite singluar article (was Agglutinating -> inflecting)
| From: | BP Jonsson <bpj@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, June 30, 2003, 19:28 |
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At 16:46 26.6.2003 -0700, Stone Gordonssen wrote:
>>>So the numeral "one" essentially works as a singular suffix?
>>
>>Exactly. To make something explicitly singular, you have to suffix -uv:
>>"one" to it.
>
>Interesting. I was working on something for Laafaah earlier today - a
>postpostion |ha| to mean "a" or "one" of something - e.g. "putin" ["pMt1J]*
>would be "putin ha", pronounced ["pMt1JJ1] - but I wondered it it would
>sound too dorky.
Sohlob has anindefinite singular marker -hah, e.g. _tjasnapah_ 'a wagon' from
_tjasnab_ 'wagon(s)'. It is actually the numeral 'one' cliticized to the noun,
and as such not subject to vowel harmony, although it does display _-hah/-heh_
alternation in the more "evolved" Heleb dialect. FYI there is also a distinct
plural ending as in _tjasnabang_, but it denotes 'many, a lot of' rather than
'wagons in general'.
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
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