Trial (grammar)

The trial (the three number ) denotes a number in grammar and represents the three number. The trial is rare and occurs primarily in Australian and Austronesian languages among the living languages .

Sursurunga

In 1986, the linguist Don Hutchisson identified two pronoun-restricted numbers of the Sursurunga as Trial and Quadral . Sursurunga is an oceanic language of the Mesomelan branch.

person		Singular		dual		Trial		Quadral		Plural
1	inclusive	iau	I	guitar	we both	gittul	the three of us	gitat	we Four	git	we
	exclusive			giur		gimtul		gimat		gim
2		i'au	you	gaur	you both	gamtul	you three	gamat	you four	gam	her
3		'ai	he she it	diar	they both	ditul	them three	diet	they four	di	she

Note: Two forms are given for the first person from the dual column onwards : the upper one includes the person addressed (=  inclusive , e.g. gitar means "me and you"), the lower one excludes the person or persons addressed ( = exclusive , e.g. giur means "he and I, without you").

In fact, the trial or quadral was a "smaller" or "larger" timpani . The "smaller Paukal" requires at least three people, the "larger" at least four people. However, both are not fixed to an exact number.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Don Hutchisson: Sursurunga Language Pronouns and the Special Uses of Quadral Number. In: Ursula Wiesemann (Ed.): Pronominal Systems (=  Continuum. Vol. 5). Narr, Tübingen 1986, ISBN 3-87808-335-1 , pp. 1-20. See the following table, from Hutchisson, p. 5.
2. ^ Greville G. Corbett: Number. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 2000, ISBN 0-521-64016-4 , p. 26 ff.