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From: elna@netcom.com (Esperanto League N America)
Subject: singular/plural *not* universal? 
Message-ID: <elnaDx9q1q.1IB@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <19960905104609.baaa00752@babyblue.cs.yale.edu> <19960905104607.aaaa00752@babyblue.cs.yale.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 16:34:38 GMT
Lines: 65
Sender: elna@netcom16.netcom.com

Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@banmatpc.math.acad.bg> writes in a recent posting (reference <19960905104607.aaaa00752@babyblue.cs.yale.edu>):
>Esperanto League N America wrote:
>> Do you really mean to suggest that the distinction between "horse"
>> and "horses" can be ignored in a useful language?
>
>Of course it can (and very often is).  That's no more remarkable than
>the fact that the distinction between `2 horses' and `3 or more horses',
>which is made much of in Arabic, is a low-key affair in seemingly useful
>languages such as English.
>
But is there not a word expressing the "two-ness" or "three-ness"? If the
expression changes as "one-horse, two-horse, three-horse" is this not
still a marker for grammatical number? or have I misunderstood the
technical use of the term?

>> Or between "he" and "they"?
>
>That's less common, but it does happen.  I think Javanese (hardly a
>useless language, whatever that may be) is the most frequently cited
>example of a language whose personal pronouns have no such category
>as number.
>
I am amazed! Can they not express the difference between "I saw him"
and "I saw them"? Or is this like the claim that English does not
distinguish between number in the second person pronouns, while in
actual usage, one observes expressions like "you both" or "you-all"
to mark the plural? 

>> Is not the distinction of singular/plural a universal?
>
>Certainly not.  It's frequent, but hardly universal.
>
I am again amazed!! Perhaps I am asking the question too simply: I
am quite aware that many languages do not change the form of the word
itself to indicate plurality, rather marking it with an additional
word or words. But can one rightly claim that these languages do not
recognise the sing/pl distinction? It seems to me rather like the spurious
asertion that "Chinese verbs have no tenses" because separate words are
used, rather than a change in form.  

>(Come on, Miko.  You don't really want to feed the widespread idea
>that Esperantists know nothing about languages other than Esperanto
>and its half a dozen source tongues, do you?)
>
I am quite willing to confess my ignorance of this level of exception
to what seemed to me a fairly straightforward universal. I stand
corrected.
Perhaps I am displaying my naivite' here, but I am still amazed that
the realworld distinction one/many is not universally expressed in
languages. Are there also languages which avoid comparison, for example
big/bigger (more big)? 
It seems that the physical world to which natural languages refer is
fairly consistent from place to place. People everywhere have children
singly or plurally; pieces of food are larger or smaller than others;
the food can be raw or cooked (I know that this is ticklish: but all 
languages can *refer* to it, n'est-ce pas?) Are these distinctions
really *not* expressed in some languages? Or are you simply claiming
that the distinctions are expressed in ways not normal to the IE family?


-- 
Miko SLOPER                   elna@netcom.com         USA  (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la          ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna   fax (510) 653 1468 
Centra Oficejo de la     Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A.      Write to above address or call 1-800-828 5944
