Dear Nina,

thanks again. You are right that different languages each has its own
way of treating grammatical number. If there is a particular
pattern/rule applied by Pali grammarians, it would be good to know. If
not, we just have to learn them by heart.

I have a feeling that Pali _may not_ have a clearly defined concept of
countable noun. If it is true, I assume that in Pali, most nouns occur
in both singular and plural, with the exceptions of a few, e.g. odana
(rice), which are always treated in singular. These may in turn be the
predecessors of non-countable nouns in later languages. What do you think?

I would love to hear the opinions of other members on the list.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:

In English one can say grass or grasses when thinking of the many
different grass stems. To me it is not strange that the Pali has a
plural form. The same about gravel. The plural in Pali (in English
there is not: gravels) makes me think of all the little bits of stone
that constitute gravel. It all depends how one looks at it.

> Would you kindly elaborate your first sentence?

>> to me it is more logical to think of stems of grass and
>> gravelbits in the plural.

>>> I have seen 'ti.naani', the plural for ti.na (grass),
>>> and 'sakkharaayo', the plural for sakkharaa (gravel).