Muke Tever <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> I noticed this kind of English sentence:
>
>     There are mice in the house.
>     There are mice in the corner.
>
> And, just for the sake of evil, felt like disambiguating them.
>
> "What's to disambiguate?" you say!  Well, when we talk about 'mice in the
> house', we don't place them anywhere, so long as they're in there: there could
> be mice in my sock drawer, grandma's chest in the attic, and at the computer
> desk.  But with 'mice in the corner', we place them together.  (The only reason
> for this is because the meaning of 'corner' makes it necessary--and the example
> easier.)
>
> Suppose we differentiate these plurals.
>
>     There are mice-A in the house.
>     There are mice-B in the corner.
>
> Then we could say something like:
>
>     There are Easter eggs-A in the kitchen.
>     There are Easter eggs-B in the kitchen.
>
> ..where the first form implies that they've been scattered about and hidden,
> while the second says they are all in one place (say, on the kitchen table,
> ready to be painted/hidden/whatever).
>
> Trentish does this.
>
> There are six forms for number:
>
>     (zero)        nomic ("Mice" are eating my rice)
>     (zero)/s'V-   singular ("a mouse" is eating it)
>     me-           paucal aggregate ("a few mice" are in the corner)
>     el-           paucal disperse  ("a few mice" are in the house)
>     ?lume-        plural aggregate ("many mice" are in the corner)
>     ?lel-         plural disperse  ("many mice" are in the house)
>
> so:
>
>    Trentish     Roughly English
>     tKiki-       "mice in general"
>     stKiki-      "a mouse"
>     metKiki-     "a small group of mice"
>     eng'tKiki-   "a few mice"
>     ?lumetKiki-  "a lot of mice"
>     ?leng'tKiki- "many mice"
>
>
>         *Muke!


I love the idea...it sounds vaguely Navajo like...unfortunately my Navajo book is up in New York..so I can't give you examples...

Elliott