No more plural? No, more plural!

Hi there,

Tom who is apparently full of good idea started this thread in june:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506d&L=conlang&F=&S=&P=5937

I let the thread slowly stew in the back of my mind and here is what I got:

/The teachers gave one book to the students./

How many books were given? Well, it depends on what the two "the" represent.

That's why I decided to split the plural and the dual of Shaquelingua in
two. Now, Shaquelingua has a collective plural and a distributive plural
--as well as collective and distributive dual.

Collective plural represents "all of the".
Distributive plural represents "each/every of the"

/The:COLL teachers gave one book to the:COLL students./

Only one book is given in this case.

/The:DSTR teachers gave one book to the:COLL students./

The number of books depends on the number of teachers and the students
have to share the books amongst themselves.

/The:COLL teachers gave one book to the:DSTR students./

In this case, the teachers gathered books in order that each student
gets one book. The number of book is equal to the number of students.

/The:DSTR teachers gave one book to the:DSTR students./

Here, the number of books is equal to the number of teachers multiplied
by the number of students. Each student received one book from each teacher.

One funny thing arising from my system is that the english expression
"all of the" must sometimes be translated into a distributive plural.

/The:DSTR shaquean couples usually have 2:COLL children./
= All the shaquean couples usually have 2 children.

A collective plural on "the couples" would change the meaning of the
sentence into: "All the couples have giant planetary parties all
together where usually only 2 children are collectively conceived."
Shocking!  ;-)

/The:DSTR Shaqueans have already gone in space at least once./
= All the Shaqueans have already gone in space at least once.

A collective plural on "the Shaqueans" would mean they already left
several times their planet all together so that there was no Shaquean
left on it. Strange migratory birds!  ;-)

Well, that was only for the funny pictures because, of course, the
distributive aspect applies to space and to time.

The usual questions: Wat d'ya think? ANADEW?

Google isn't very talkative about "collective plural" and even less
about "distributive plural" to which it seems to prefer the
"non-distributive plural". <g>

So far, I haven't found anything as simple as the shaquean quantifiers.

indefinite:
             COLL:DU     z(#)    a couple/pair of
             DSTR:DU     s(#)    each of two
             COLL:PL     r(#)    all of several
             DSTR:PL     g(#)    each of several

definite:
             COLL:DU     tx(#)   the couple/pair of
             DSTR:DU     kx(#)   each of the two
             COLL:PL     vr(#)   all the
             DSTR:PL     kv(#)   each of the

Where (#) represents the case marking.

(Note: There should be a macron instead of an umlaut herebelow.)

/ze çyä jishso kva tiyö çakesëf./
[ze: CH3 jiz.so kv)a: tiwO CakesEf]

ze             çyä   jishso  kva          tiyö      çakesëf
INDEF.COLL.DU  DOTA  child   DEF.DSTR.PL  IND:ATMP  shaquean

= All the Shaqueans usually have two children.

/fäje çyä loöku kxa tiyö taiku./
[f3je: CH3 4o"Oku kC)a: tiwO ta"iku]

fäje     çyä   loöku       kxa          tiyö      taiku
NUM.one  DOTA  descendant  DEF.DSTR.DU  IND:ATMP  parent

= Each of the two parents usually has only one child.

(Interlinear lexicon and explanations are here:
http://perso.normandnet.fr/maxilys/cakesar/gram-12.html
Do not wander in the rest of the site which is outdated.)

--
==================
Remi Villatel
maxilys_@_tele2.fr
==================

Replies