LL-L "Morphology" 2002.12.27 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Ole Stig Andersen <osa at olestig.dk>
Subject: Double plurals

Speaking of double negatives, how about double plurals?

Why do some lgs (e.g. Lowlands) require a plural ending on the noun in cases
where the plurality is already given, say, by a number? This must surely be
unnecessary doubling, and is not used in logical lgs like Turkish ;-)

- araba (car)
- araba-lar (car-s)
- iki araba (two cars)

Ole Stig Andersen
http://www.olestig.dk

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

Hi, Ole Stig, Lowlanders!

> Why do some lgs (e.g. Lowlands) require a plural ending on the noun in
cases
> where the plurality is already given, say, by a number? This must surely
be
> unnecessary doubling, and is not used in logical lgs like Turkish ;-)

The first example that came to mind as a possible case of true double plural
is Dutch _schoen_ 'shoe' > _schoenen_ 'shoes'; cf. German _Schuh_ >
_Schuhe_, Lowlands Saxon (Low German) /Sou/ _Schoh_ ~ _Schauh_ > /Söü(e)/
_Schöh_ ~
_Schäuh_; cf. Scots _shae_ > _shuin_.  However, I am not sure if this is
true double pluralizing.

I do agree -- seen globally --  that it seems strange, "excessive," that
Germanic languages (and most other Indo-European languages) require plural
forms with numbers.  It is true that many languages do very well without
plural forms or with scarce use of plural markers, for instance Sino-Tibetan
languages, Altaic languages (including Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Japanese
and Korean), and numerous language groups of Australia, Oceania, Africa and
the Americas.  Those that manage without plural markers do not seem worse
off (contextually), nor do those that do not use articles (another Germanic
"extra"), such as Slavic languages and the above-mentioned.  So it seems
indeed a good question to ask why languages would develop and retain such
devices that to others would seem superfluous (aside from difficult to
learn -- including also gender marking which is totally unknown and is
perceived as unnecessary (!) in most Altaic languages).

> ... like Turkish ;-)
>
> - araba (car)
> - araba-lar (car-s)
> - iki araba (two cars)

Just briefly (for reasons of "un-Lowlandic-ness") let me mention that I have
gained the impression that the supposed Turkic plural marker is not a
genuine plural marker.  In some Turkic varieties, such as the Oghuz
languages at the western end (including Turkish), this marker (/-lAr/) seems
to be moving toward plural marking function.  However, I have found that
originally (in Old/Orkhon Turkic and in medieval varieties) and still in the
Eastern Turkic languages (such as Uyghur, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrghyz, Yellow
Uyghur, Salar, Khakas, Tuva, Altai) it seems to be something like a "variety
marker," implying something like "various (sorts of) ...", not being used in
many contexts where plural marking would apply in Germanic languages.  I
think that in this sense it is similar to Malay and Indonesian noun doubling
(e.g., _buah_ 'fruit' versus _buah-buah_ '(various) fruit' where _buah_
alone can indicate plural when plurality is obvious within a given context).

We tend to impose our native categorization of morphology on "exotic"
languages we learn when in reality the categorization is not entirely
warranted.  This also applies to Westerners who learn Mandarin Chinese
overusing the suffix 們/们 _-men_ indicating plural of humans, and overusing 了
_-le_ (< _-liao_) as though it were a Western past tense marker when its
real function focuses more on change than on past action.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

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