Associative plurals

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Frislander
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Associative plurals

Post by Frislander »

How does your language handle associative plurals, e.g. "John and co.", if it has them?
Edit: The information given below is now out of date, partly since Frislandian has undergone major revision since then.
Spoiler:
Frislandian has them; they are formed by complete reduplication of the noun phrase. It freely applies this to all human and proper nouns and is markedly different from the normal plural, signified by the suffix L/G-(e)n.

Jan-Jan
[ˈjan-jan]
John-John
John and company

However, since kinship terms (often the targets of such associative plural marking) are denoted by verbs in Frislandian, they need to be nominalised before they can take the associative plural.

apamjat-apamjat
[ˈa.pam.jat̚-ˈa.pam.jat̚]
father.DEF.1-AGT-father.DEF.1-AGT
My father and his family (lit. the one who fathers me and those associated with him)

This reduplication strategy may also be applied to other nouns to produce similative plurals:

lovuuk-lovuuk
[ˈl̪o̞.ʋuːk̚-ˈl̪o̞.ʋuːk̚]
wolf-wolf
wolves and things

For reference here is an example of the standard Frislandian plural L/G-(e)n.

lovuukken
[ˈl̪o̞.ʋuː.kːɛn]
wolf-PL
wolves
Last edited by Frislander on 01 Jun 2017 21:50, edited 1 time in total.
Iyionaku
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Re: Associative plurals

Post by Iyionaku »

:con: Anto forms associative plurals exactly the same way like normal plurals and it's only applicable to humans.
Intriguingly, the formation is exactly like it is in your Frislandian.

Con Con
[t͡ʃɔn t͡ʃɔn]
John PL
John and company

Da fo papa papa
[d̥a fɔː ˈpʰapʰa ˈpʰapʰa]
1SG GEN father PL
My father and his company

However, you can't use "wolf" associatively. The phrase

Bu'me wufas wufas

Means "wolves" or "the wolves" exclusively and never "A wolf and his companions"
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Imralu
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Re: Associative plurals

Post by Imralu »

Māori uses .
http://maoridictionary.co.nz/ wrote:1. (particle) and others, and company, and the rest - a word used after names of people, wai and mea, and terms of address, to indicate the inclusion of others whom it is not necessary to specify. With terms of address it merely indicates the plural. It is incorrect to use it after nouns, except when they are being used as a term of address.

Tēnā koutou, e Mere mā. / Hullo, Mary and others.
(Te Kākano Textbook (Ed. 2): 2, 13;)
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific, AG = agent, E = entity (person, animal, thing)
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Frislander
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Re: Associative plurals

Post by Frislander »

I'm just going to try and resurrect this thread, because I don't think it gained enough interest first time round.

:con: O Kanã

In O Kanã the associative plural is formed using the plural article ii plus a personal name, which otherwise does not take articles.

ii Teako
[iː te̯ako]
ii teako
PL dog(name)
Teako and co.

One might also argue that forms such as those given below count as associative plurals.

ii tãtõwã
[iː tãtõwã]
ii tãtõ-wã
PL father-1.POSS
My father and his brothers

However, this claim becomes weaker when one remembers that O Kanã uses a Crow kinship system.
Iyionaku
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Re: Associative plurals

Post by Iyionaku »

Frislander, I think the main reason why this thread doesn't gain enough interest is that many languages (con and nat) lack associative plurals, and this challenge is practically undoable if a language does not have one.

:con: Ular

The associative plural in Ular is formed by means of the associative plural particle 门 màn.

木千门
Tàthón màn

[tɛ˩sɔn˥ mɑn˩]
John ASSOC
John and his company

我的爸门
Lăn pō tâ màn

[lɛn˧˩ pɔ˧ tɛ˧˥ mɑn˩]
1SG GEN father ASSOC
My father and his associates
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