Fwd: Composed number: noun + numeral RE: Composed number (also called "double plural")

[Thomas Hanke]

Dear Bernhard,

Urmas' Estonian data reminded me of Finnish (well, rather trivial) and numerals.

I guess there exist collective nouns in Finnish, too.
But what came to my mind is another issue, plurals of numerals used
for sets, discussed by Hurford (2001) for Finnish (with hints to
Estonian and a more limited use for 1 to 4 in Icelandic). It's in
subsubsubsection 3.3.3.3 "Meaning of whole NP determines number of
numeral and noun"
This is probably not exactly what you are searching for but may be
interesting, too, since a grammatically singular form of a nominal is
opposed to a plural form.

In Finnish, the plural form of *numerals* from 1 upwards yields a
collective reading.
This is not limited to shoes, eyes, etc. but more or less acceptable
depending on various factors.
Hurford's description includes hints to distributive readings, too, up
to 'three rounds of beer'.

I know it's open to discussion but one could analyse even a formally
singular forms such as 'three car' as semantically plural due to the
numeral.
Then
'three-PL car-PL' = 'three sets of cars'
is a composite plural form of the collective / plural
'one-PL car-PL' = 'one set of cars'

Best,

Thomas
=====

Hurford, James. 2001. The interaction between numerals and nouns. In:
Plank, Frans (ed.), Noun Phrase Structure in the Languages of Europe,
561–620. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.


On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 12:59, Urmas Sutrop <Urmas.Sutrop at eki.ee> wrote:
> Dear all
>
> Such plurals exist also in Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language.
>
> There is a collective marker –ik /-stik, e.g.
>
> kild, Gen stem: killu ‘fragment, shard’
> killu-stik, Gen stem: killustiku ‘rushed stone, splinters’ Collective
> killu-stiku-d ‘different kinds of rushed stone’ Col-Pl,
> but _kahte sorti killustikku_ ‘two different kinds of rushed stone’ for with numerals the headword takes SG Partitive in Estonian, i.e. Coll behaves like Sg.
>
> maa ‘earth, land’
> maa-stik ‘landscape’
> maa-stiku-d ‘landscapes’
>
> põõsas, Gen stem põõsa: ‘a single bush’
> põõsa-stik ‘shrub’
> põõsa-stiku-d ‘shrubs’
>
> mänd Gen stem männi: ‘pine’
> männ-ik or männi-k ‘pine forest or a small group of pine trees (grove)’
> männi-ku-d Coll-Pl ‘pine forests’
>
> lepp Gen stem lepa ‘alder’
> lep-ik ‘alder forest or brushwood‘
> lep-iku-d Coll-Pl ‘alder forests’
>
> etc.
>
> Collective is not productive in modern Estonian and limited to a small number of words related to forest types and other natural phenomena.

--

Thomas Hanke
____________
Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena
www.uni-jena.de/fsu/anglistik/
 &
Berlin Utrecht Reciprocals Survey
http://reciprocals.eu
––––––––––––––––



--

Thomas Hanke
____________
Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena
www.uni-jena.de/fsu/anglistik/
 &
Berlin Utrecht Reciprocals Survey
http://reciprocals.eu
––––––––––––––––



-- 

Thomas Hanke
____________
Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena
www.uni-jena.de/fsu/anglistik/
 &
Berlin Utrecht Reciprocals Survey
http://reciprocals.eu
––––––––––––––––