tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 17 13:09:46 2003
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Re: "to be" and plurals
From: <[email protected]>
> > > Maori chaH 'op no'Daj'e'.
> >
> > I've always wondered about this. Since inherently plural nouns are
> > treated, grammatically, as singular, you might expect this to be
> >
> > Maori ghaH 'op no'Daj'e'
> >
> > but that seems a bit ridiculous, at least to my linguistic biases.
>
> I thought about this when I was writing it.
> But I was wonder, about this and similar sentences, what happens when you
add
> a number type element?
>
> cha 'oH.
> wej cha 'oH/bIH. ?
>
> Because if you merely used the number in place of the noun, which is
allowed,
> wej bIH. ?
I don't think this is the same thing. In this case, you're talking about a
number, not a noun, even if you're using it in place of a noun. Numbers are
not singular or plural (at least, not that I have ever heard). There are
also existential issues here (d'Armond wrote a couple of articles in HolQeD
about that).
SuStel
Stardate 3046.7