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prettygoodwordpaucal (PAW-kuhl) - adj., a language form referring to more than two but less than many in number.
English, like most languages, has two grammatical numbers for nouns, singular and plural. Some Indo-European languages, such as Icelandic and ancient Greek, have aspects of the PIE dual form for two of an item, and other languages such as Arabic have it in full. A couple languages, such as Hopi, have in addition a paucal form -- more than dual but less than plural. From Latin paucalis, few, little, the noun form of the adjectival paucus, which also gave us paucity.
---L.
English, like most languages, has two grammatical numbers for nouns, singular and plural. Some Indo-European languages, such as Icelandic and ancient Greek, have aspects of the PIE dual form for two of an item, and other languages such as Arabic have it in full. A couple languages, such as Hopi, have in addition a paucal form -- more than dual but less than plural. From Latin paucalis, few, little, the noun form of the adjectival paucus, which also gave us paucity.
---L.
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Date: 2010-02-02 05:02 pm (UTC)We are fortunate that Gene Wolfe didn't write The Last Unicorn.
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Date: 2010-02-02 05:23 pm (UTC)