Re: When is plural applied?

On Wednesday, April 14, 2004, at 08:09 PM, Philippe Caquant wrote:

> Clearly there is much confusion in natlangs on that
> point. The problem is that plural and singular just
> aren't enough in some cases. I already mentioned the
> canonic Ancient Greek example:
> Ta zoa trekhei (the animals "is" running; probably
> meaning "the group of animals is running")
Originally - but in ancient Greek just a quirky bit of syntax. It was a
hangover from the time when in PIE the neuter plurals were infact feminine
singular collective nouns (hence the ending -a). But apart from the nom. &
acc. these nouns had aquired the ordinary plural endings for the other
cases by the time they appeared in ancient Greek. As time went on, the
older syntax gave way to the more natural use of plural verb agreement; in
modern Greek the nouns have plural agreement.

Something similar probably happened in pre-Latin, but by the time we know
the language neuter plurals are plural and there's no trace of the older
use.

In both of the ancient languages, singular collective nouns are treated as
singulars, in the American manner, and do not have plural agreement with
verbs as is more common in British use.

Ray
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