Re: [tied] Plural of nouns

Thank you for your help. In fact, I don't want to make something very
large. Maybe I'll continue the research later!

> There is no morpheme for "feminine" in Latin, although the ending -a on
>words which show a form in -us is most likely to indicate a female (but
>there are exceptions!!)

I know of it. I was thinking on first class adjectives (bonus, a, um), and
my question was more in a very large sense. I want only to know if the
morphemes indicated, in Latin and in PIE, the gender, number and case all
at once, without possibility of segmenting them. I think this is the case,
isn't it?

>>2) In French, the plural is marked by an -s, but only in writing; only the
>>article distinguishes between "le théâtre" and "les théâtres".
>This again is only partly true. The plural marker in French is complex. It
>can - in speech - be found at the beginning of words which start with a
>vowel (/arbre/ and /zarbre/ in l'arbre and les arbres) and is often marked
>in other ways, such as liaison with or without -s- after a past participle.

Yes, you are right. Again, I was thinking in a large sense. I gave this
example because linguists generally compare Portuguese with French in this
aspect. Obviously, the subject is not as simple, in French and in
Portuguese, too.

>In Italian there are nouns which have no special form for the plural, so the
>article carries the weight of indicating the number. All monosyllables,
>nouns ending in a consonant, an accented vowel, or unaccented -i are of this
>kind, for example il re and i re, la citta` and le citta`, la crisi and le
>crisi. But remember that plurality will be indicated by the verb as well
>(which is only partly true in French).

Thank you, I didn't remember that! But I think there are not the examples
I wanted (la scuola - le scuola, for example).
Bye,
Bruno