Re: Number

On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't be surprised if some language somewhere distinguished the
> > collective and distributive interpretations grammatically--either by using
> > different quantifiers (my conlang Tokana does this), or perhaps by using
> > different plural markers.  Maybe some or all of the languages which Marcus
> > was referring to actually work like this.  Then there are languages which
> > allow you to pluralise the verb itself to indicate multiple events; in such
> > languages, "Everybody went to the village" could be disambiguated by just
> > looking at the number marking on the verb.
>
> In Pima, the verb is reduplicated to show plurality of the objects
> according to rules that are not completely clear at this point. There is
> some evidence suggesting that being distributed across the objects is
> relevant. For example, if you beat two dogs, the verb does not
> reduplicate, but if you beat a dog and a cat, the verb does reduplicate.
> (Sorry for the violent examples -- I didn't elicit them.) One the other
> hand, there are instances where you get reduplication with a single type
> of noun. This is an area that needs more work, but it does support your
> claim somewhat. (BTW, 'go' does reduplicate for the subject, so your
> example sentences might be very relevant.)
Did you beat both dogs at the same time? In that case, there was
one beating event, hence a singular. I can imagine that this
reading is easier to get when you're talking about two dogs than
when you're talking about a dog and a cat.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir

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