Re: The dual.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 7001
Date: 2001-04-05

Apart from Slovene and the Sorbian group, I think the dual survives
marginally in some Lithuanian dialects (but not in the standard
language). I don't recall any other modern IE languages that still
have the inherited dual.

Slovene, by the way, is unique in having a typologically rare
_counterparal_ dual. Naturally paired body parts etc. are PLURAL in
Slovene, and the dual number is reserved for "accidental" pairs like
two tables, towns, etc.

Non-inherited secondary dual formations have occasionally arisen here
and there, e.g. in Cornish, with a form of the numeral "two" prefixed
to nouns that referred (only) to paired body parts, e.g. <lagasow>
eyes (of different people) vs. <dewlagas> the eyes (of a single
person).

Piotr


--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:

> I'm trying to remember. Slavic still has the dual, doesn't it? Who
> else?