[projectaon] Re: proofreading book 15
- From: "Jonathan Blake" <blake.jon@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:59:12 -0800
On 2/16/07, Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'll leave someone else to address/decide the -im issue you've raised here. Jon,
you might want to decide on this sooner rather than later, as it has obvious
implications for most (all?) of the other books.
I've been wracking my brain for another example in English where the
adjective describing a nation has the quality of number (i.e. is
plural or singular). I can't think of any: French, English, Chinese,
American, Polish, Russian, Sommlending, etc. OK so that last example
isn't strictly English, but you get the idea. These words are
numberless, neither singular nor plural. Perhaps Drakkarim should
stand as-is because we don't have a precedent for using a singular
adjective.
Wait a minute. I just had an Ah ha! moment. Does English inflect _any_
adjectives based on number? How did English manage to avoid inflecting
adjectives when both French and German do? Strange.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural
If anyone can give any counter examples, please do. Otherwise, I'm
thinking that we should not inflect the word "Drakkarim" when used as
an adjective. We would only use "Drakkar" as a noun in the singular.
--
Jon
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