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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: Re: singular/plural *not* universal?
Message-ID: <elnaDxJIF1.3qB@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <19960905104609.baaa00752@babyblue.cs.yale.edu> <19960905104607.aaaa00752@babyblue.cs.yale.edu> <elnaDx9q1q.1IB@netcom.com> <7fg24waveu.fsf_-_@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 23:25:49 GMT
Lines: 23
Sender: elna@netcom22.netcom.com

sdlee@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes in a recent posting (reference <7fg24waveu.fsf_-_@wisdom.cs.hku.hk>):
>>>>>> "Esperanto" == Esperanto League N America <elna@netcom.com> writes:
>
>    Esperanto> But is there not a word expressing the "two-ness" or
>    Esperanto> "three-ness"? If the expression changes as "one-horse,
>    Esperanto> two-horse, three-horse" is this not still a marker for
>    Esperanto> grammatical number? or have I misunderstood the
>    Esperanto> technical use of the term?
>
>Is that a *syntactical* marker, or a semantical component?
>
This is a fuzzy boundary, is it not?
Early grammarians strove to apply categories of Latin grammar onto
languages which were unhappy to be analysed thus. Recent grammarians 
have surely become more aware of this problem, but do not always grapple
with the depth of the problem. We cannot always tell the relationships
between relationships as syntax shades into semantics.

-- 
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