Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 July 29

= July 29 =

What language has the most kinds of non-singular tense?
Like different kinds of plural, a tense for none, a tense for negative numbers.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:46, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you mean tense? Bazza (talk) 19:23, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Assuming you are asking about grammatical number, our articles cite Sursurunga language as a rare example of a language with 5 number categories (singular, dual, lesser paucal, greater paucal, and plural). I haven't dug into the refs further to see if this is really the world record, but I'd be somewhat surprised if it wasn't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:33, 29 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Sagittarian_Milky_Way -- some languages (Finnish, Japanese etc.) have negative verb tenses but that's different from a verb having the null set as a subject! Also, negative numbers took a long time to be accepted by mathematicians, and do not really occur in languages except under the influence of formal mathematics scholarship.  I'm not sure what "Negative three chickens crossed the road" would even mean, anyway... AnonMoos (talk) 03:26, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * It means there is some expectation that three chickens are needed to cross the road. The lack of something necessary is a common non-mathematical way to understand the negative.  If I have negative three dollars, then there is three dollars missing that need to be replaced to settle accounts.  Negative three chickens crossing a road means that there are not currently chickens crossing the road, but there should be.  This is distinct from no chickens crossing a road, where there is not necessarily any expectation that there ever would be.  -- Jayron 32 15:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * That's one among a number of possibilities for what a negative-number verb inflection could theoretically mean in abstract logic, but I don't think it's something that naturally-occurring human languages have felt the need to express in that way... AnonMoos (talk) 17:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't "minus three" chickens crossing the road plus "three" chickens crossing the road still only add up to "zero" chickens crossing the road? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I would interpret -3 chickens crossing a road as them going in the opposite of the reference direction. So, the sum of 3 and -3 = 0 would mean there was no net change in chicken numbers due to crossing the road, although different chickens may be on each side than before. The sum of the absolute values, on the other hand, would be 6, meaning 6 chicken road-crossings occurred, although not necessarily 6 unique chickens. If we make them moose instead of chickens, then both bits of info are useful. The 0 tells us about net migration patterns, while the 6 tells us about the risk of hitting a moose on that road. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:33, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * But under your analysis, the meaning of that mysterious "negative-number" agreement morphology in the language of those elusive Moose-country dwellers would just boil down to the meaning of the simple English word "back", wouldn't it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:42, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * No, I believe saying "3 chickens crossed the road and 3 crossed back" would mean they were all the same chickens, while "3 chickens crossed the road, then -3" makes no judgement on whether they were the same chickens. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:05, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * "saying "3 chickens crossed the road and 3 crossed back" would mean they were all the same chickens" On the contrary, the natural way to express that would be to not repeat the number, saying "and crossed back" or "then they crossed back". Specifying that 3 crossed back implies that they are not all the same chickens. Captainllama (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2019 (UTC)


 * "3 chickens crossed the road and 3 crossed the other way" would be the English way to say it without specifying if they were the same. To me "crossing back" means returning to where they came from. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:51, 5 August 2019 (UTC)


 * That seems also a perfectly fine interpretation. There are lots of ways in which negativeness (in a mathematical sense) can be represented physically; it usually implies some sort of lack or opposition.  This isn't just idle trivia either, there are lots of fundamental questions about the meaning of negative numbers in, say, fields like quantum physics, where the physical meaning of negatives arising from equations are still hotly debated; for example whether or not the "negativeness" of antimatter can mean that those particles are moving backwards through time, etc, see here for example.  -- Jayron 32 12:46, 31 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The OP may find other candidate countries in the Grammatical number's sections on trial, quadral, and paucal. Loraof (talk) 16:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)