From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Jul 11 21:49:01 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:49:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G0WeR-0001Gt-7P for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:43 -0700 Received: from py-out-1112.google.com ([64.233.166.180]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G0WeQ-0001Gl-9M for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:43 -0700 Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id x31so149021pye for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:40 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=K/mP9oFxcCtKfLrLGqvCAFjHkZ5SLrk7Kl8xCsLJr8kjXInvImblkSjpg0Fcc0gYLzb35uSRGga+MCOEbT+vwAYMxHlheoRJVbcrMPRlweetCRWWYElAQb5aE9fUVTHW8qifhXb4m0iVBQOac3nUW7kskDHnINy2MfPGKhImfoU= Received: by 10.35.78.13 with SMTP id f13mr385961pyl; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.35.39.7 with HTTP; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 22:48:40 -0600 From: "Maxim Katcharov" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Plurals, was: A (rather long) discussion of {all} In-Reply-To: <20060711231315.51352.qmail@web56402.mail.re3.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20060711231315.51352.qmail@web56402.mail.re3.yahoo.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.4 (--) X-archive-position: 12141 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 7/11/06, Nathaniel Krause wrote: > > Maxim Katcharov wrote: > Are these 'dual/trial numbers' as pervasive as the "1 vs >1" > distinction in those languages? I doubt it. What I would like to see > is a natural language that has one verbiage for, say, 1 and 2 things, > and another for 3 or more. Or perhaps a language that has only few vs > many. Clearly, a language can be constructed with this requirement, > and it's a gamble to say that one shouldn't exist. My point is that > the tendency of many natural languages to draw the line at 1|2+ seems > to indicate something, and I suggest that it is that thought works in > the way that I describe. This isn't an argument for my position, and > my position isn't dependant on this. It is, as I said, just something > to consider. > Grammatical numbers other than plural and singular are almost certainly less > common than the "1 vs >1" distinction. I think it's pretty clear that the > human brain, when interpreting objects as integers, has a strong recognition > of "1 vs. not 1", a somewhat weaker recognition of "2 vs. not 2", a > somewhat weaker recognition of "3 vs. not 3", a still weaker recognition of > "4 vs. not 4", and basically no recognition of numbers larger than that (not > that I'm an expert on this sort of thing). This being the case, it makes > sense that grammatical numbers specifying larger integers would be > progressively less common (Wikipedia says that there are apparently no > languages with a quaternary number). > > If I were making a conlang for fun, it would be interesting to include as > many numbers as possible > It would be more fun yet to exclude 1vs!1, and see how people reacted. > > Interestingly, Chinese does have a plural, but it can only be used to > > describe people. > > > > Elaborate? > Sure; it's pretty simple. Standard Mandarin has a suffix, -men, which > changes the simple form into a plural form. However, this suffix is only > applied to nouns or pronouns referring to people. For instance, "wo" = I, > "women" = we;"gongren" = worker(s), "gongrenmen" = workers. This suffix is > pretty optional because the simple form of any noun could refer to refer to > one thing or more than one. You could, by analogy, try applying the same > suffix to things which aren't people, for instance "goumen" = dogs, > "fangzimen" = houses, but this is atypical and would be regarded as > incorrect, even if the listener could probably guess what you mean. > Interesting. So gong by itself is open to either the plural or singular interpretation? How and how long ago did -men come about? For what reason, I wonder? To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.