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Re: [lojban] singular vs. plural

I've always thought that one-few-many was an eminently sensible and intuitive division, and I wonder why more languages don't use it. Looking at http://linguistlist.org/issues/8/8-239.html (archives of the linguist mailing list) I see someone noting that singular-paucal-plural "is found in the Cushitic language Bayso, where the paucal is used for reference to 'a small discrete number (from two to six) of individuals' (Hayward 1979:102). Bayso has this system in nouns, while Kayapó, a Jê language of Brazil, has it in its pronoun system (Wiesemann 1986:361, 368). It is also found in Avar, but relatively few nouns are involved (Sulejmanov 1985)" (and he's asking if anyone knows of other such languages) while quite a few languages have singular-dual-paucal-plural. 


Láadan has singular-paucal-plural division.
Still doesn't answer your question about whether there is a language with paucal-plural but no singular. It would seem unlikely; the distinction between one and many is even more basic than between few and lots. 


~mark


MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com wrote:
In a message dated 7/12/2006 4:22:34 AM Central Standard Time, ecartis@digitalkingdom.org writes: 



Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't suggest that a language would not function without plurals,
> but that it's odd that the line was drawn between 1 and 2. Without an
> explanation for this, one would think that there are languages out
> there that have a pervasive plural that makes itself known between 2
> and 3, for example.

There are such languages. See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number> for some examples.

mu'o mi'e xorxes
But are there any languages that distinguish between low-number, e.g., perhaps 1 through 5, and high-number, greater than 5? IOW, where the 'singular'/'low-number' category includes more than just 1? Many languages have duals, but do any of them have no singular? 

stevo