Re: Number

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.)

Marcus

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