stevo wrote:
> Ah, yes, it is strictly members of Carnivora, not just any collection that
> English calls a pack.  Each classifier can have this kind of group word.  I
> don't really like it, but it's inherited from Latejami, and I haven't
> changed it (yet).

Yes. If the classifier is supposed to always be semantically precise
then it doesn't make sense, since a group of carnivores isn't a kind
of carnivore. What about having "pack/herd/swarm/school of" as a
productive affix? Then it will also be possible to make "pack (of
wolves)" and such words.

--
Veoler

3.6 Mass, Count, and Group Distinctions

Many nouns have separate forms that differentiate between homogeneous entities, individuals, and groups of individuals. These are referred to, respectively, as mass nouns, count nouns, and group nouns. Here are some English examples:     

Mass            Count                   Group
---------       -----                   -----
mutton          sheep                   flock
grass           blade of grass          lawn
   ship                    fleet
foliage         leaf
beef            steer                   herd/cattle
hair            hair, strand of hair    wig
rice            grain of rice
guts/flesh      organ                   body
wood            tree                    grove, wood
   map                     atlas
water           drop                    shower

Note that English mass nouns are never used in the plural (*muttons, *beefs), while count and group nouns have both singular and plural versions. (However, some English nouns can have more than one sense; e.g. "hair" and "wood".)

Incidentally, do not confuse group nouns discussed in this section with the abstract noun group class discussed in the previous section. Here, we are referring to natural groupings of any basic noun. The separate group class, however, refers to groups of diverse, sentient elements (typically human, although they could also include or consist of members of intelligent alien species) linked by one or more activities specifically associated with the group. The groups discussed in this section do not imply any specific type of activity. These are physical groupings that describe what a group is - not what it does.

In the noun derivation scheme discussed earlier, some classes contained only count nouns while others contained only mass nouns. Specifically, in the 'matter, non-living' classes, 'substances' are inherently mass nouns, while 'locatives' and 'others' are inherently count nouns.

...

Now, the classificational system provides a mass/count distinction, but it does not provide a group concept. In the interlingua, we will use the modifier morpheme "ku" for this purpose. Also, when creating a group sense from a basic noun concept, "ku" should always be applied to the count derivation, not the mass derivation, so that its class is correctly provided by the classifier.

...

Here are some examples of group nouns:

  kutigi = herd or flock (of mammals such as horses and sheep,
            but not of birds, "-tig" =
            'grazing mammal' classifier)
  kudami = flock (of birds, "-dam" = 'bird' classifier)
  kukagi = swarm (of insects, "-kag" = 'insect' classifier)
  kutimi = fleet ("-tim" = 'vehicle' classifier)kubomi = school (of fish) (, "-bom" = 'fish' classifier)

Note that, unlike English "flock", "kudami" can only be used with birds. For example, we cannot use "kudami" in 'flock of sheep'. Instead, we must use "kutigi".

Group derivations are not semantically precise, even though they may appear so in the above examples. For example, the group noun "atlas" will be formed from "ku" plus the word meaning 'map', even though an atlas can contain much more than just maps.


I suspect that a suffix would be better for this meaning than a modifier, since, as you pointed out, a group of things isn't a kind of one of those things.  A separate word (a noun) might be better still, having the general meaning of this kind of homogeneous group.  For the time being, though, I shall stick with this modifier.  

stevo