Conlangery #125: Grammatical Number

Conlangery #125: Grammatical Number

Published: Mon, 07 Nov 2016 07:42:42 +0000 \

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utterance-id1 yeah <unk> <unk> these are mini was quick enough fucking [noise] what country <unk> might be scripted languages and the people i'm george carlin and would be down the road wages william manager [noise] and today [noise] we were going to talk about <unk> medical number [noise] this is a topic that we thought we'd actually already done so we were going to be doing like a revisit but apparently we have do not have an episode dedicated to number [noise] we have um what i think we've just like mentioned it a lot in a lot of other places 'cause it pops up and everywhere yeah as interacting with other things all the time so maybe that was what confused [laughter] so <unk> [laughter] yeah so we're actually just going to go through and get into a lot of numbers um now we have some online resources that willing to a lot of the stuff i'll be talking about i pulled from um the cambridge uh text book on number which is by our friend reveal corbett um some people who've been listening a long time remember that i recommended his book on gender um <unk> another cambridge textbooks and the one on number is good as well i basically i borrowed it last night and i've spent a lot of last night and this morning just like reading or reading and reading several sections i didn't get through the whole thing but i got some high points and then uh william has some more diverse sources too and uh i think um i'll have to check you might be able to get that from the <unk> lending a library if you're in <unk> i used i got a lot of information from volume three dixon basic linguistic theory mhm uh he has an entire chapter on number and i do know that those books are available from the the um like my main library so this would be from poly three right of addictions and ah there's a an interesting thing in that it's not in other materials that will cover in a minute but um [noise] let's just get started with what are your your first decisions to make when you're building a number system and basically what's distinctions do you want to make so first of all you don't really need number at all i don't think it's that commonly attest to to have a language with absolutely no number distinctions but he did but you do find a lot of languages where it's very restricted like in <unk> only obligatory on pronouns optional on <unk> referring to humans right um so you can have number be kind of a restricted category you could probably do without it there's arguments that our our language is like uh apparently pure uh-huh his argue to have no number um the source of all the uh all the uh exceptions to rules that you ever find [laughter] [noise] um so it's possible not to have it but if you're going to you know do number in most languages probably are gonna want to do it you can have basically just send you learn plural that's what english has that what mandarin has that's what [noise] many many languages half and that's just the most basic system is you have singular and plural <unk> and usually you're singular form is going to be a basic form and then the plural is going to be march somehow ah we'll get into how uh that can be broken but um at least on most now i'm just going to work that way uh we'll get into how you can have uh uh um differences there once you are saying okay singular plural there are languages that distinguish drawl number which means exactly two of something so you know if you have just singular and plural you'd have singular is one and plural is more than one or two or more there's actually apparently they're our language is that the treat that a little differently um [noise] uh but uh if you have a dual system uh you'd <unk> you'd have sealer drool plural and so you'd have one too and then three or more uh and then you can also have trial which is exactly three so you get um again that goes with singular drool and plural so you get you know one two three and then more than three or four more uh so there are there have been languages that have argued to have a drawl number that's exactly for but uh most of the arguments about that or or kind of shaky in at least the language that have big salmon been examined that supposedly have quadruple number a lotta times it seems like it's more like what will we uh the next option you can have is uh <unk> uh which is a few of something sometimes when people talk about the <unk> which is spelled p. a. u. c. l. uh by the way um there's an attempt to shoot a sign an exact number range to that [noise] like you know three to five but it must languages or certainly the ones that dixon found makes him claim that all language that have a political number that number range has to do with some pointed comparison so if you're talking about a family then <unk> may be uh you know a number of between three and five or six or whatever um and then plural is for seven and above whereas if you're talking about an entire village it will take a lot more people before you finely chop over to the plural so <unk> is rarely a fixed range with relationships or the <unk> it has to do with those relationships in in what is your <unk> basically yeah right you might if you look at grammar of a language that has a <unk> you might see people talk about oh tacos up to six or up to ten but uh what you've just said well he makes a lot more sense to me is that it's um to use uh uh some ethics term it's sort of like uh in a scale or implicate you're right it's right relative to what you would expect uh as terms in terms of size of groups and such excessively and pop culture go along with dueling trial or it can be uh you can have a system that singular <unk> tomorrow so that's the the thing so dueling trial those that's that's as far as we know as high as you go with exact numbers maybe you know since we're <unk> you could be a little speck of do speculative and say okay i'll add a quadruple or i mean or if you don't care about being naturalistic you could just go like to like ten or something but uh [laughter] most natural and most realistic for what we know about how language works you can have uh two dueling trial and then the popsicle can go with that or with just a singular plural system [noise] another mhm where are you going to mention another split already moving on to a new sub topic oh i was moving on to the next to mexico okay you know i just got to talk about marketing it's a little bit so george mentioned earlier that when you have a single a singular plural system the singular is usually less marked than the plural that is to work we'll be shorter it will be missing something um such as they plural suffix [noise] in general [noise] singular is least marked then <unk> then come the <unk> and the trial and park when all the rest in general [noise] singular and <unk> are the most simple and then as you add these other things [noise] um they tend to be more mart or at least or at least as smart as the plural right um so i just wanted to mention that you don't typically have a situation where you have a singular which is just a plain stand and the duo which just has a little tiny intimate thing and then the <unk> has a heavier or more mart um ethics tomorrow plural typically goes the other way to do all the trial etcetera are typically more marked yeah then i get a little um one thing that you can see is like you often will see tool and trial historically derived from two and three exactly and even in systems where you have dual trial and <unk> you end up with like jewels dry from to trial is derived from three and then <unk> derived from four which um maybe something that <unk> misleads people into thinking that there's a quadruple sometimes um but uh but uh that's that's an interesting place you can look for a historical source and then ah another distinction i want to make as we've been talking so far about singular versus plural there are some languages where it makes more sense to speak of non plural and <unk> for example dixon says the turkish an unmarked them is indefinite as the number you can mark number on it there is a plural but there are certain circumstances where what an english speaker would say oh this is a singular that that is an incorrect application that uh plural reading it's possible for a bears fan and some of the language is also we've talked about singular too plural um you might have some parts of the grammar where the tool and plural distinction collapses and there it makes sense to talk about non singular <unk> yeah [noise] now let's let's talk about that like non plural distinction real quick [noise] there are so our our language is where the singular can be like that can be more like non plural there are also languages it's a little bit less common but there are languages where the plural can have the meaning of not distinguishing number [noise] there are also languages that actually have an on march number it's just called that you would call the general [noise] that's just the this is not marked for number then they have a marketing for senior and i'm working for <unk> right so that's another thing that you can have is is you have you can have this general [noise] number and then work first thing you learn mart for plural um ah corporate corporate uh talks a lot about um different languages that have a general or that he he talks about like that sort of non plural as like general being fused with sealer or something but [noise] the same basic principle as what you were talking about and and and there are some languages where you might because something called a singular motive which uh grabs things this often <unk> so for example welsh has a bunch of collective now for example low for pigs is more basic then you the singular form a motion so that <unk> that have been added to select a singular entity and sometimes people will talk about the singular motive uh right when when languages have that yeah and singular motive basically as far as i can tell it just means a marked singular yeah so like and when you have this uh like uh uh uh uh <unk> a singular motive versus some some collective now that's not going to ever be the <unk> that's going to be some subset of <unk> act that way right right um so you know it <unk> well pigs is one example but um generally it's not going to be the same thing um there are a couple of like sub category as you could get into this whole lead into that um there's another wrinkle you can have languages that have a like a uh a <unk> and a greater <unk> where it's like okay we have a few things and then slightly more things than than you are plural uh you can also have things that languages that have a lesser plural in a raider plural and the greater plural it varies from language language what it can be sometimes it's just an over abundance of things sometimes it's uh all love something uh but it's it's generally you know it's you know marking that it's much bigger than just what we would normally call oral and um that circling back around in arabic you have just like in well you have some of these collective now that have a mark singular a singular motive they also are marked for a greater plural so so you know by default plural but on both ends you can get okay just one of uh or uh uh a huge number of them <unk> arabic turtles were already complicated enough yes well whether if the if the the the broken <unk> or a whole other matter [laughter] so that gets you into the the basic idea of what you can do you can just do single toro uh you could add in to a trial in there you could add in a <unk> in there you could have either the singular plural be like a general rather than actually singular up <unk> you could have a third general in there or you can divide things up into lesser in greater uh <unk> what's your a greater fall and their <unk> some language isn't popular guinea would that have done something different noticing yet [noise] possibly um there are <unk> well we'll get into even more things as we go along but uh there are a lot um <unk> <unk> there are a lot of ah different things you can do right now um well you you have some things about like we're number is more right so if we been talking about all these distinctions but the question is where are those distinctions present um uh <unk> <unk> <unk> sort of a light theory theoretical framework says that number is realized on court arguments that is either a noun phrase a free pronoun or person ethics is on the <unk> that's where number shows up basically they can show up in other places but those are the court things he's talking about uh it's important to mention that number marking does not have to be attached to the now if you have a complex noun phrase like now as you too <unk> too <unk> too the plural marking might come at the very end as a click on the entire now phrase rather than what we expect from into european languages where number parking is attached to everything um nuns and adjectives that degree um [noise] um it said free pronouns uh are most likely to to have number marking even if the language doesn't care about number otherwise [noise] person ethics as uh verbs than some language is the only clue about what's going on in terms of number district said number need not be marks it all on your bones mandarin is like that um or it can be <unk> places like um latin or any other into european languages and lots of other languages yeah um just uh <unk> you should person ethics is on for [noise] they can be a <unk> also <unk> personal ethics as a little bit yeah um uh people listeners window i'm i'm i'm learning <unk> and <unk> there are the person ethics is for um like actor and experience er but there are separate florals that they still have a person distinction there's there's we first speech <unk> participants and then you day for third person but it's not the it's a little bit separated right and you can't get languages where you just have some stuff that goes in the <unk> that says one of the arguments is one or both of the arguments a squirrel um so in in in terms of <unk> that's not at all confusing but in in a transit of herb you could either <unk> subject or a <unk> object or both could be parole um with some languages defaulting too uh prefer interpretation when it's not clear and your pronounce might make different number distinctions than your name's yes and uh <unk> drink for example or somebody into european languages while there were <unk> dual vert forms in some places you would get dual <unk> had the plural performs for example yeah one thing um you can think about too is that if the um yeah uh the the um there is a a split where some things are marked for plural and not other things it usually will follow the like the agency hierarchy or the intimacy hierarchy right so that means for a short person second person third person pronouns ah going to ah humans and and um it's than than inanimate you know you'll have you'll draw the line somewhere around there and then things before that get number wrecking things after that don't get <unk> number of marketing right um an example it's uh i brought up at the top of the shows and mandarin number marketing is obligatory on the pronouns it's optional not very commonly used but optional on human now um but you know anything else doesn't can't get poor marking right yeah in in <unk> book he organizes the mountain hierarchy as in terms you know can ship terminology <unk> most likely to take um or to be a separate category for a split in the hierarchy soak in terms first then any human than animate <unk> with a possible distinction between lower and hire random it's an <unk> right and um that was mentioned uh corporate mentioned that too um and he said like the best case for that was like maori but even then like not all um the demands on the list that take the number marking i think it was either it's the these are the ones that take obligatory number marketing or something but not old and downs on that list are kinship term so it's not it's more likely but it's not necessarily going to be extreme defied if bitch kinship terms that you're talking about because um so it it that if you use that as your divider maybe prepare to make it a little messy yeah absolutely and another thing that dixon observed is if you have a small number of [noise] now <unk> the take obligatory number marking there's a good chance at least some of them will be <unk> that is there will be an entirely different stem for the singular versus the plural for <unk> that makes sense yeah um uh <unk> another thing to makes sense so it's very very common in pronouns for them to be like <unk> right to to have different forms or singular and floral uh upper different number marking ah there you know the examples like mandarin where it's completely <unk> regular your adding just uh subjects that's quite right height yeah yeah pretty rare not unheard of but pretty rare um so you know maybe uh you know you can't do it but maybe if you're making a lot of common links try to use it sparingly um numbers also usually marked on questioned words and demonstrative um with the <unk> the question we're what um is more likely to behave like an now than a program so it might probably your local now so in a language that has no number marking on now is it all you might still get lots of clues about number if you using demonstrative sir question where it's like um in addition to possibilities on there okay it's it's a good time for me to talk about the pronouns in and minimal augmented systems yes please do okay so pronouns may make different number distinction than play downs too we've talked about that before and that's really obvious in something like chinese were basically now it's almost never take number marking um and some can't [noise] um but another possibility apart from singular into plural is minimal and augmented ah and this is a really interesting thing so instead of having [noise] first second and third person in your singular column let's add something under the first person let's add one plus two that is what some of us would call he do all inclusive first person that is you and to me so well <unk> the minimal comment <unk> the minimal number in the first call them so i you and me you <unk> then in the augmented call them we have an exclusive first person at inclusive first person and the second person a third person so something languages i think cherokee does this where you can either make this really complicated chart that has a tool but there's only one thing that occurs in a duo um and it's exclusive um or you can simplified minimal augmented where would you would normally consider your singular call them does have one call them that refers to to <unk> um but the pattern is maybe fairly obvious about the relationship between the minimal come they'll call them and the augmented calling it simplifies descriptions of pronouns for uh a good number of languages so it's worth considering that for your <unk> as well i don't know i don't know about uh cherokee ho drug test then um in our in our lessons suits like really weird 'cause they describe it as uh oh it's the the inclusive dual versus inclusive plural but yeah it's basically just the minimal augmented right and and they they'd always looks weird if you have no dual anywhere else the language except for that one pro now yeah it seems i'm motivated so and with yeah we'll augmented yeah it makes it makes sense to think of it that way because if you have and inclusive uh first person it has to be true individuals' in that category you can't you can't have just one person because then it would be either first person or second person so yeah but it's it's just sort of biological pragmatic result of uh having in inclusive i i would think but there are of course languages where um you do have and and inclusive that is always just marked as plural or whatever like ah mandarin simon is just <unk> um so there's no other choice right <unk> if you've got inclusive or you're going to do this <unk> augmented thing or you just always going to work them for number either way works right the reason i think um cherokee might habit is because um britain watkins language senior i'm though for his film um contain such a system and i don't know what else he would have picked it up yeah i i don't know we we uh we uh i need to okay listen there's you can do some homework and look at it [laughter] 'cause uh i don't know i <unk> i know that turkey has and and inclusive but i didn't i don't know i don't know if it's been walkman so okay moving on okay we have some things to talk about with verbs right this is very interesting so um ignoring the question of just sort of person marking on the on the verge stem itself um mites have changes for number where the system will change if in transit verbs usually it's the object <unk> agrees with with <unk> it's usually the subject but not always um [noise] and very often the stems are <unk> that is there is a completely different staten for singular subjects versus political subjects and you can even enjoy great fun with a language like <unk> which sometimes have singular duo and florals depletion um oh my [laughter] right so if people are walking it's different than if one person or three three more people are walking [noise] um you may have a very small number of these in a language or you might have a few dozen um really common semantic or verbs are posture verbs sit stand lie put it's common enter go die or be dead kill and maybe a few state it's like be bigger pretty small these are the most likely to have this sort of <unk> yeah i think just a general rule which depletion is it's usually a small set right usually smell it um and ah but for for anything any any more for logical category that's <unk> it's gonna be some small set um so i yeah go ahead oh like you know you know all of your personal pronouns could easily be be <unk> but you can't have too many now is basically it wasn't too many <unk> right [laughter] um uh what was it was like i said it's interesting it's found over the planet i mostly seen in north america but it pops up you know in the <unk> and easter so it it really does happen everywhere um <unk> uh with respect ah we went to move on to the find distinctions yeah let's let's cover those a little bit and then i'll talk a little bit about weirdness with agreement okay so so far we've just been talking about reality at though this is a thing single idea but they're made me more subtle distinction in kinds of <unk> um and they're basically three you can if a collective floral uh distributed <unk> or an associate of <unk> the collective refers to a lot of something or something [noise] usually only use the <unk> but it doesn't have to be that way and it might be that you're collective plural and your plate plural are the same thing but you might have completely different ways of marketing them historically this is interesting um because you might have a language with new number marking developed one of these and then that becomes the standard for overtime for example the broken <unk> arabic our thought too originally be collecting downs uh right and that certainly explains why for example inanimate plural now is an arabic takes seven and st universal right um [noise] we should we should mention okay we had selective used a different way earlier and now we're talking about a collective oral in in a different context uh there's just a terminology alert like collective can mean like three or four things in in linguistics some of them are things <unk> having to do with number you could have like uh a derivation old collective it's it's a little bit of uh a minefield <unk> make sure when you read about something that's a quote unquote collective you understand like you know look at the examples in the explanation and understand exactly what selective means in this context right um another possibility is a distributor plural which can taint the sense of here and there or among several people i have a link to a paper about the <unk> ah prefix uh it's a <unk> um is usually called uh distributive although off and it just looks like a normal plain plural although there are circumstances where it clearly has a distributive sense and then finally there's the associated plural which just were you when you add this it typically goes on ah humans um and it means that person and people associated with them that you know <unk> an excess crew <unk> one language a separate uh associated plural for example is hungarian right um and then for fun central alaskan <unk> has <unk> will do will end up <unk> associates please tell me that the <unk> oh so you do is common when talking about <unk> [noise] i don't know that would be the uh <unk> <unk> maybe we'll have to uh find do you pick speaker and and and you got that and um there is uh uh surprisingly hefty um walls chapter on the associated plural they found it interesting enough and there's lots of interesting ways that it could be marked um <unk> as opposed to different from your just normal plural marking my favorite is for planes creepy which for an associate uses a singular now in phrase but <unk> over mhm right right so there there's lots of possibilities for proud of mark that <unk> the the walls chapter explained it a little bit more detailed and get some examples oh um well mention that a little bit it in a minute um too because i want to go back and uh talk about agreement for but um so most most commonly we're familiar with number agreeing on herbs ah in ah <unk> if you look more broadly in in the european you have it agreeing on uh demonstrative articles you determine urge basically and um adjectives um it can agree on a lot of different things but um there are a lot a few saying ways that it can be a little bit um interesting in terms of what happens uh one thing that can happen is that you can have like a <unk> number so let's say you having um agreement on verbs for number what happens when you have a um a plus clauses don't really have number so uh uh you know you have a choice and you see languages that do <unk> and languages the <unk> in that case so let me give an example of george is talking about um when you you can ah english uses i. n. g. <unk> to me you know these <unk> say something like talking to him pains me right in english you to stay together usually <unk> we've taken the phrase talking to him um which is a phrase and the verbal agreement is singular um <unk> some language just might take a <unk> right right um other things um so this this is something that occurs in some dialects of english um is that um you can say things like the committee have decided the the pan to our plane uh it's it's weird to me i'm sure it's weird the williams mail is since we're both uh american english speakers but other parts of the english speaking world british english i think new zealand english they do do this for like singular now that referred to groups of people can take <unk> agreement corporate calls these corporate now uh they're often called collective again because everybody just decides that they want to use the word collective mhm um but uh you know you can call it corporate or whatever but um it's present in in english but it is a test it in other languages and even in non into european languages so uh that's an option um there are um talking back to the association plural again i think william you started to mention this but you you can have cases where you have uh a singular uh um no let's say where we're having ah the verb agree with the subject in number you get out of a singular subject what floor are working on the bird to mean right <unk> and his associates or excellent excellent there associates whatever um mixed in her associates just um that's you know another way of doing associated plural is to sort of quote unquote break the uh verbal agreement could join phrases drive syntax <unk> up a wall um at least germ <unk> because they don't know how to deal with it [laughter] [laughter] [laughter] [noise] uh well i mean there there there's there's many different series but it's it's sort of uh it's sort of funny trying to cause i've i i i ah did my first pre them on this first spanish and and it's you know it's it's a lot of um <unk> going to try to get back to work into a framer but basically if you have i couldn't join phrase so bill and mary slipped or whatever uh you have uh basically two choices you can have it have that verb or whatever is a green whatever the <unk> the um the target is that agrees and um that can agree with only one of the contracts and almost always you're going to be like the nearest contract so let's say it's agreeing with the subject the subject is before the last con drunk is what is going to agree with serves maybe one example of a language where it agrees with <unk> further contract like the first contract with her being at the end uh but more likely it's going to be like the nearest one the other one is the one that is standard in english is which is you disagree with all the contracts so you take them you got okay say you got to singular um ah things joined <unk> and so if you have a tool you can do to do with that if you got if you if you only got poorly plural basically you count up all the things that you're <unk> joining uh in terms of you know um how many things that's magically represents and then you do the verb agreement based on that so those are the two options and really this is more like a game of like frequency because it's not necessarily going to be that uh language always does one or the other it might be like a language does you know we'll we'll do the agreement with everything more often than not um [noise] the other thing is um a noun phrases that are qualified so like if you have a number before the noun phrase uh like three women uh joe uh three women went to a town uh then you might <unk> three women good town then you might actually not have agreement on them for uh i think there are also languages that actually don't do the number marching in those cases too right right yeah there's some languages where once an actual number is spoken um number agreement is tossed out the window right now just number agree entirely number marking on the now it's no longer necessary if you say three dogs <unk> say that's <unk> you know what sport so three dog right so it up and and applies to agreement as well as sometimes sometimes you don't need agreement when you have the actual number there um there's a funny thing that happens in ancient greek sometimes it's kind of number it's kind of weird we're basically you can have a third person subject was the first person plural verb and that means me and so so if something she could say you know bob we went to the store means bob and i went to the store [noise] yeah [laughter] okay [laughter] with no need to say and uh that's uh sufficiently marked on the verb so that's enough that's that's uh yeah so that's an interesting one uh the last thing is this this applies to agreement but it can also apply in other places where you get it uh for a whole bunch like an art or a perfect world ah so you might have like just a singular person but because um status or something they get plural agreement on the fur as an unrealistic thing um uh i'm just talking about birds but it could be on anything it's similar to what happens also we'd pronouns in that very often when you have a two million formal distinction in pronouns that formal pronoun the you know the t._v. distinction that formal pronoun is often uh moral and that's why english lost the the number distinction in second person pronouns because we had <unk> we had you being plural became the the the formal and it got overused and now we have to invent <unk> right because dial got checked out the window yes but i mean in many languages not just in europe you know obviously throughout like um like they they european languages you you have this happening a lot of the the the formal prone to the formal second persons are um not all of them but a lot of them are <unk> also um like in mandarin the formal second person <unk> is a contraction of <unk> ah so it it which is the the usual plural so it was it's like a historical plural i think take all looked at the same thing it has uh <unk> that is um you that also is formal so it's pretty common for that that kind of thing to happen if you end up with what uh two million a formal distinction <unk> so like [noise] and there are other grammatical categories that can interact with number [noise] there are some languages in which all number distinctions or obliterated in a negative claws for example um in pronouns in the non singular some person distinctions may collapse so it's not that unusual to see a single second and third person <unk> for example and as we know from into european languages number and that in class and gender may interacting complex ways for example there's one language in australia <unk> john i'm not sure how to pronounce where it has um basically for non classes the first non class is used for humans and some higher animals um but the only class that has a singular carol distinction is the first and in fact when you're <unk> to to animals she always used to the singular forum um and this marking you know <unk> something [noise] so your number can interact in other ways besides just number ah for example in ah plenty of european languages [noise] the number of case distinctions available collapse in the plural um so there are eight cases in sanskrit um but many of them have the same marker <unk> right so i think that's about all that we have did you have other things to mentioned [noise] i don't think so [noise] uh just a couple of like weird things that popped up i think i mentioned this earlier but i just wanted to say uh apparently you can get a little bit nicotine <unk> picky about what plural actually means um in english we use plural when they're more than one so you can say like one and a half days apparently in french it has to be two or more that's neat so so yeah you're you're floral might have yes uh schutz subtle difference in meeting um [noise] uh the <unk> well maybe we'll ask <unk> if that's true but ah apparently the that's uh a difference um and another thing is uh we didn't talk much about historical sources for number um other than you know drool and trial you know <unk> understandably come from two and three often and often if you have a tool trial and ah <unk> that possible mike also come from all for um <unk> another um an example that we've had i think the language is called <unk> um [noise] i i am not sure that i ah wrote that down correctly but uh it had originally <unk> singular drool trial and floral the trial became a new plural and then the <unk> is still there it's used as uh what we mentioned mondays raider plural uh so like you know so you now have singular jewel plural and bigger <unk> uh <unk> and this is one of those situations then that are are marketing this hierarchy is broken for historical reasons <unk> where the simple plural because trials are likely to be more complex than simple plural there's going to be a period of time in the language where there's some they're playing <unk> um is more marked than the than the greater plural which is a little bit special yeah that could be i don't know for this particular language i just have that little fact written down ah but um that's definitely something that could happen when when that happens so uh very you go that's another uh little wrinkle so uh that's all that i have to uh i think um definitely um just we've list out your options you can go simple you didn't go real complicated um uh you know where you can do nothing at all [laughter] like anything in common i mean you can you can just ignore it or you can go all out um i have to say that if you're not used to using these complex number systems it will cause you pains um as you start to use the language or translate um for example not v. has singular too old trial and plural um and it also makes an inclusive explosive person distinction and while i was capable at the height of might not be studies producing not be fairly fluently i was constantly bumbling number and clue city [noise] yeah 'cause that's simply not used to attending to [noise] for me plural is more than one right and um it's a little hard to get good test examples if you're looking for english uh test examples to to do that 'cause like yeah you might run into things where people specified the actual number but then you you also like you know if you look at the con like test senses you you're you're looking at them and you're thinking okay well uh this is a plural in english i can translate this you know several different ways depending on exactly how many people that represents right yeah so um yeah and the more complex your number system is the uh the the more of those options you're gonna have a [noise] but you know <unk> <unk> [laughter] he got more distinctions then then you you might even have trouble testing them all [noise] but that's the general idea of um number how um what you can do with number <unk> options you have the all the the different places so for all of you um especially if you're you know starting a new <unk> uh numbers probably one of the first things you want to get them so go sit down and think about okay how many number distinctions who i wanted this language ah exactly you know [noise] how is degree mckenna words [noise] white how's it going to be more [noise] think it through and ah [noise] i hope to [noise] to see some interesting number [noise] um [noise] system [noise] william any final no [noise] all right so they can offer listening and i'm going to say happy kind of like [noise] thank you for listening to <unk> you could find our archives in sherman oaks at <unk> dot com [noise] we could support the show on pay per on at patriotic dot com slash <unk> you can also follow us on baseball quieter brutal plus and on top of her now all of those you just fine <unk> our web space provided by the language creates exciting parts of the music is by no device on our news site was designed by beyond <unk> [noise]

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. conlang
  4. dual
  5. language
  6. linguistics
  7. number
  8. paucal
  9. plural
  10. singular
  11. trial

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 125 Grammatical Number (last edited 2017-09-10 09:57:20 by TranscriBot)