Klallam Grammar Main Menu Klallam Grammar Alphabet and Sounds Basics Grammar Introduction: How to Use This Grammar 1 Transitive and Intransitive Verbs 2 Past and Future Tense 3 Basic Speech Acts 4 Nouns and Articles 5 Possessive Pronouns 6 Adjectives 7 Object Pronouns 8 The Preposition and Word Order 9 Negative Words 10 More Negative Words 11 Self and Each Other 12 Questions: ‘Who?’ and ‘What?’ 13 Subordinate Subjects in Questions 14 Questions: ‘Whose?’ 15 Focus Pronouns and Answering Questions 16 Comparison 17 Conjunction: ‘And/with,’ ‘but/without,’ and ‘or’ 18 Questions: ‘When?’ 19 Time Expressions 20 More Time Expressions 21 Time Prefixes 22 Questions: ‘Where?’ 23 Some Place Expressions 24 Source, Way, and Destination 25 Serial Verbs 26 Questions: ‘How?’ and ‘How much?’ 27 While Clauses 28 Adverbial Expressions 29 Intensifier Auxiliaries 30 Conditional Clauses 31 Passive Sentences and Shifting Vowels 32 Lexical Suffixes 34 Possessed Verbs 35 So Then ... 36 Reporting Verbs and Direct Quotes 37 Indirect Quotes 38 Questions: ‘Why?’ 39 Because 40 Cause 41 Speech Act Particles 42 The Actual: To Be Continuing 43 State, Result, and Duration 44 Participant Roles and Middle Voice 45 Recipient, Beneficiary, and Source Objects 46 Reflexive, Noncontrol Middle, and Contingent 47 Activity Suffixes 48 Relative Clauses 49 Verbal Prefixes 50 Movement and Development Suffixes 51 Nominalizing Prefixes 52 Adverbial Prefixes 53 More Demonstrative Articles 54 Objects of Intent, Emotion, Direction, and Success 55 More Reduplication Patterns 56 Interjections 57 Rare Suffixes 58 A Fully Annotated Text 59 Texts to Annotate 60 Conclusion Appendices Klallam Dictionary Klallam-English and English-Klallam sections only

33 Collective Plural

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In English and the other European languages, when we want to talk about more than one of an item, we have to use a plural form. For example, to talk about more than one cat in English, we have to use the plural form ‘cats.’ For most nouns the plural is required in English;  we cannot, for example, say ‘*I saw two cat.’ We must use the plural and say ‘I saw two cats.’

In English the plural is usually indicated with an ‘s’ or ‘es’ suffix on the noun. However, in some words the plural is marked by changing the vowel sound, as in ‘tooth’/’teeth;’ in some words the plural is marked by a different suffix as in ‘child’/’children;’ and in some words the plural is the same as the singular, as in ‘deer’ and ‘sheep.’

The Klallam plural differs in several important ways from the European plural. The Klallam plural is both simpler and more complicated than English. Klallam is simpler in that the plural is not usually required. It is more complicated in that it is not marked by a simple suffix; there are a greater variety of ways the plural is marked in Klallam.

There is an important difference in meaning between the English plural and the Klallam plural. The Klallam plural is really a ‘collective plural’ because it is used to refer to a ‘collection’ or ‘group’ or ‘bunch’ of items taken together. So, for example, the word sqəy̓áx̣aʔ is usually translated ‘dogs,’ but a more precise translation would be ‘bunch of dogs’ or ‘group of dogs.’
 

This page has paths:

  1. Grammar Montler, et al.

Contents of this path:

  1. 33.1. Infix -əy̕- or -aʔy-
  2. 33.2. Infix -ə́y- or -ə́yə-
  3. 33.3. CC reduplication
  4. 33.4. Ci, C...í, and Cí reduplication
  5. 33.5. Irregular plurals and ŋə́n̕