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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ital<EM>. Tutte le mura</EM> ("city walls", plurale
tantum: *la mura doesn't exist) <EM>hanno un buco</EM> means that
all the city walls have each a hole (distributiv), whereas <EM>le mura hanno un
buco</EM> refers to a particular town whose walls have a
hole.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Prof. Paolo Ramat<BR>Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori
(IUSS)<BR>Responsabile della classe di Scienze Umane<BR>V.le Lungo Ticino Sforza
56, 27100 Pavia – Italia<BR>Tel. +39 0382 375811 Fax +39 0382 375899 </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=sivakalyan.princeton@GMAIL.COM
href="mailto:sivakalyan.princeton@GMAIL.COM">Siva Kalyan</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
href="mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG">LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, December 20, 2009 11:01
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: Zero-coded plurals of
pluralia tantum</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>Amendment: "All my trousers have a hole in them!" -> "All my
trousers have holes in them!"
<DIV>Siva<BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>2009/12/20 Siva Kalyan <SPAN dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:sivakalyan.princeton@gmail.com">sivakalyan.princeton@gmail.com</A>></SPAN><BR>
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style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV dir=ltr>Hi,
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Suppose I had one pair of trousers with a hole in it. I would exclaim,
"My trousers have a hole in them!". Now suppose I had the misfortune to
discover that this was true of <I>all</I> of my pairs of trousers. Then
I would say, "All my trousers have a hole in them!". Note that in the first
case, <I>trousers</I> refers to a single pair of trousers, whereas in the
second, it refers to multiple pairs.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>What I'm curious about is: How common is this in the world's languages?
That is, how common is it for a language to zero-code the plural of a
plurale tantum (a noun denoting a singular entity but which is grammatically
plural)? Is there any other strategy that is used used in such situations?
(The earlier thread on double plurals comes to mind.)</DIV>
<DIV>Also, why would a language zero-code this kind of plural in the first
place? Might it have to do with the "repeated morph constraint" (Menn and
MacWhinney 1984) or "product-oriented schemas" (Bybee 2001)?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Thanks,</DIV>
<DIV>Siva</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Ref's</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Bybee, Joan. Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge University Press,
2003.</DIV>
<DIV>Menn, L, and B MacWhinney. "The Repeated Morph Constraint: Toward An
Explanation." Language 60, no. 3 (1984):
519-541.</DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>