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Re: Verbs as Adjectives - Reply and Thanks. :)

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 13, 2004, 21:04
>> I've included an optional plural affix, but since Japanese gets by >>perfectly well without any plural affixes for most nouns (I think >>there's a plural form for the noun "person" isn't there? And a couple of >>other nouns... along with the pronouns) >> >> > >Some nouns have fossilized reduplicative plurals (hito (person) -> >hitobito, shima (island) -> shimajima, kami (god) -> kamigami). In >addition, there's a suffix -tachi, which actually means something like >"group associated with", but has some overlap with plural (and in >pronouns *is* a plural suffix) > >
BTW, I know its widely held that Japanese is an isolate, but what's the minority view? From the little grammar and vocab I've read about, it "feels" like an austronesian language like Javanese, Tagalog, Indonesian etc with a lot of borrowings from Sino-Tibetan languages *shrugs*. Not that I have any evidence... I don't even know why it feels that way lol. Although you mentioning reduplication to form plurals reminded me of it, since I was thinking that earlier and a lot of austronesian languages form their plurals by reduplication don't they?

Replies

John Cowan <cowan@...>
Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>