Message-Id: <199308161428.AA02918@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:03:55 +0100
Reply-To: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Subject:      Plural (was Re: Imagist)
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: O

And, Having read your completed posting ...

I confess I am having difficulty understanding your point.

It is the case that some languages grammaticalise a difference
between singular and plural, some grammaticalise a three-way
difference between one, two (sometime also three and four) and
many, and some languages do not grammaticalise any such distinction.

Those that do not grammaticalise the distinction invariably have
ways of showing number when required - generally by using exlicit
numbers or quantitative terms like 'several' or 'many'.
(I leave out the question of the exact status of reduplication in
those languages which can use it to show plurality - I believe
it is generally optional, and could be classified as grammatical
or lexical to taste).


It seems to me that that is exactly what Lojban does.  Number is
an optional grammatical category. If you choose to use it, you
have a choice of many options, some precise and some
vaguer. Most of them are plural. Your objection seems to
come down to saying 'I can't say more than one without
being more specific than I want to be' - but you can, with su'ore.
I suspect that we will find that more commonly used are
so'u, so'o and so'i, exactly as in non-number languages.

        Colin