Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: boyle@netcom.com (Joseph Boyle)
Subject: Re: Semantic classifiers and plurality
Message-ID: <boyleCyz6on.5yD@netcom.com>
Organization: Boyle, Boyle, toil and trouble
References: <39p0bp$e3e@cherokee.advtech.uswest.com>
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 00:57:58 GMT
Lines: 23

rroot@advtech.uswest.com (Becky Root) writes:

>I'm hoping someone here can help me save face as a
>cocktail-party linguist.  I have vague memories of there
>being languages which have different plural markers based
>on the semantic class of the plural noun in question.  The
>example I was thinking of dealt with categories of shape,
>e.g. different plural markers for long things vs. spherical
>etc, or something like this.  I couldn't/can't recall an
>example language and now I'm wondering if I was just thinking
>of languages like Japanese which mark a quantity term, like
>a numeral, differently according to the class of things being
>counted.  So can anyone tell me of a language which actually
>marks plural differently based on semantic class?  Many thanks!

I assume you want something more exotic than Latin, Russian, etc. where 
noun endings depend on number, gender, and case, but not in a separable way.

East Asian languages do have noun classes that each have their own 
numerical classifier, as you cite, but they don't have plural markers.

Many African languages probably fit the bill. Swahili and other Bantu 
languages have different singular and plural prefixes for each noun class.
