« previous next »
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: marking plurality  (Read 2887 times)

Offline zaba

  • Serious Linguist
  • ****
  • Posts: 272
marking plurality
« on: December 04, 2014, 10:22:39 AM »
are there languages where:
1. singular and paucal both marked in one way (or not)
2. plural is marked another way

Or is that typologically unheard of?
Logged

Offline Daniel

  • Administrator
  • Experienced Linguist
  • *****
  • Posts: 1800
  • Country: us
    • English
Re: marking plurality
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2014, 12:08:40 PM »
So there's no distinction between sg/pauc? In other words, you have just categories paucal and plural?

Not supposed to happen, according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicational_hierarchy#Morphology

I don't know of any particular examples.

I would be entirely surprised by a language that has a paucal/multal distinction only. The "one some many" type is fairly well attested. Is "one" privileged in every culture? I don't know.
Logged
Welcome to Linguist Forum! If you have any questions, please ask.
Pages: [1]
« previous next »