The question was raised on Auxlang whether the Esperanto J-plural
used for both adjectives and nouns is the same independent phoneme.
Here's an example which I throw out for consideration.
Recently I showed my two-year-old son that if you take two mirrors
such as what we have in our bathroom cabinet, and position them
in a certain way with your head inbetween them, you see about 6
reflections of your head. My son really likes this. He calls it
"tri Gxonaj". I don't think we ever said anything like that to him
before.
So, assuming that he made this up himself, a child that can't really
count to 6 can figure out that:
- J is a plural ending.
- when applied to nouns that end in "a", it's pronounced "aj"
(and not 'o' 'on' 'oj' or 'ojn')
I suppose an alternate explanation is that he thinks his name
is an ajective, and that he's a "Gxona" (jonish?) person -- so
"tri gxonaj" means "three Jonish ones."
I find the first explanation easier to believe.
Thomas - Rochester NY USA
