Questions tagged [grammatical-number]
The aspects of grammar which reflect singular versus plural but also others more exotic like dual and paucal.
46 questions
0
votes
0
answers
59
views
Is "more than one" always treated as grammatically singular across languages with singular/plural?
In English, we say "more than one book is on the table," where "more than one" is treated as singular despite referring to a quantity greater than one. This pattern is also ...
- 109
1
vote
0
answers
71
views
What grammatical number is assigned to noun phrases formed by the conjunction "and"?
In a language with number agreement on determiners, would the phrase "the good boy and girl" have an adjective and article that is marked as plural since "the" and "good" ...
- 423
4
votes
0
answers
113
views
Is this the dual in Scottish Gaelic?
The wikipedia article for inflection has this image.
The picture is comprised of three labeled images:
A single dog labeled cù
Two dogs labeled dà chù
Three dogs labeled coin
The description on the ...
0
votes
1
answer
80
views
What is the standard/comprehensive reference for grammatical number in different languages?
I am a novice in this area so apologies if I use the wrong terminology.
For the purpose of content localization, I am seeking an easy and reliable reference for how numbers map to different plural ...
- 127
8
votes
0
answers
107
views
Does Northern Kurdish actually have a paucal number?
For the past 10+ years, the Wikipedia article "Grammatical number" has stated:
Of the Indo-European languages, Kurmanji (also known as Northern Kurdish) is one of the few known languages ...
-1
votes
1
answer
121
views
What happens when a bilingual uses a grammatical subject with a different number system than the verb?
For example, Arabic has a ternary number system: singular, dual, and plural. If a bilingual speaker uses an English phrase as a subject that would have dual number in Arabic (but of course the ...
- 541
1
vote
0
answers
53
views
What are the different approaches to handling grammatical number in type theory?
What are the different approaches to handling grammatical number in type theory?
This question asks about the type of and in five boys and girls.
That noun phrase is interesting because boys and ...
- 1,366
4
votes
2
answers
178
views
Order of spoken numbers with respect to powers of the base of the numerical system
I am interested in the history of how numbers were spoken with respect to hundreds, tens, unities... (or more generally powers of a base if the systems is not decimal). To clarify, here is an example: ...
- 141
5
votes
0
answers
97
views
Is there a natural language in which grammatical number is used to denote "all" of something (as distinct from simply "many" of something?)
I am working on a constructed language, and this is a feature I have been considering. My conlang has singular, dual, and plural numbers that function as one would expect. This "omnic" ...
- 51
0
votes
2
answers
411
views
What languages have more than two numbers regarding things and persons? [duplicate]
In most languages I know there are only two numbers.
Singular and plural.In most Indian languages too there are only two numbers.
But in Sanskrit there are three numbers.Singular number(yeka ...
- 1,238
1
vote
1
answer
228
views
Is there such thing as a 'half-plural'?
If yes, does any language have this feature?
By 'half-plural' I mean, somewhere between singular and plural, but not dual, trial, or quadral.
- 465
7
votes
1
answer
224
views
Is there a language with dual indefinite articles?
At university, we have been looking into language change, and seeing how for example "one" was used as the singular indefinite article, which changed into "a", but a question arose about whether or ...
4
votes
1
answer
247
views
How common is the "elliptical dual" (or plural) cross-linguistically?
This question on Latin.SE asks about the "elliptical dual", a construction where the dual number doesn't mean "two X" but instead "X and one other". For example, in the Iliad, Aíant-e Ajax-DUAL means ...
- 69.5k
3
votes
1
answer
138
views
Are there any languages that mark plural before the noun, while everything else comes after?
There's a lot of head-final languages where everything precedes the noun except for the number (Japanese is one example). But are there any that do the reverse? Is there a language where number ...
user19661
0
votes
1
answer
770
views
Inclusive pronouns—can there be more than one?
Many languages have two forms of the pronoun "we": an inclusive one and an exclusive one.
In the examples I am aware of, there is just one inclusive we, meaning "i/we and you (sg./pl.)". Are there ...
- 31.1k
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
"Who lives there" vs "Who live there?" [closed]
I'm a bit confused as to the proper grammar when posing the following question.
"Who lives there?" <- seems to imply just one person
"Who live there?" <- seems to imply more than one person
...
3
votes
2
answers
113
views
Is there a language where in declension number is affixed peripherally to case?
Is there a language where, given that number and case are affixed seperately not fusionally, a noun can have the structure of , e.g. ithawen = itha-w-en [woman]+GEN+PL ("of the women, the women's")? I ...
- 215
4
votes
0
answers
284
views
Is there a purely singulative-collective language?
I wanted to ask "Is there a language that marks singular?" but found this. So instead, I'm asking: Are there any purely singulative-collective languages?
The (admittedly abstract) idea behind this is ...
- 504
2
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Are there any languages with different plural forms for different numbers?
Are there any languages where there are different plural forms depending on the count?
For example:
1 cook
2 cooks
10 cooks (this would be a different word)
- 147
5
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Why is the word "God" plural in some languages?
In Hebrew religious texts there are several different ways to refer to God (capital G). Some of these words, such as Elohim or Adonai are plural forms although it is clear that Judaism is monotheistic....
- 343
1
vote
2
answers
269
views
Which modern languages have more than two grammatical categories for numbers?
As stated in the title. I aware that some languages have some remnants of dual grammtical numbers.
- 163
7
votes
6
answers
6k
views
Languages without plural markings
Are there languages where nouns are invariable? As I have read such languages simply use a numeral in front of the unchanged noun.
They don't say "five cats", but "five cat" or "five tail cat".
I ...
- 448
4
votes
4
answers
640
views
Are there languages that form noun singulars by adding suffixes to plurals, rather than vice versa?
In languages that express grammatical number in nouns with suffixes, usually there is either a suffix added to an unsuffixed singular to form the plural (cat—cats), or the suffix (or inflectional ...
- 997
12
votes
4
answers
2k
views
How common is it for languages to use the plural for zero?
In English, when you use "no" or "zero" to indicate a lack of something, the noun is plural:
I have no horses. There are no houses for sale. This costs zero dollars.
How common is this across ...
- 2,156
3
votes
0
answers
294
views
Languages with 0 Number?
Languages that conjugate nominals for singular vs. plural number are quite common across the world. Languages which also have a dual conjugation are also fairly common. But is there any language which ...
- 1,157
6
votes
4
answers
1k
views
What is the origin of the paucal form?
I just recently learned about the distinction between paucal and plural forms in my native Serbo-Croatian.
Designating groups of counted nouns as smaller or larger than five adds complexity to the ...
- 61
2
votes
1
answer
349
views
Subject/Complement Agreement. How to describe problem with "The thing is the objects."
In https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/29140/is-or-are-the-only-thing-that-i-want-you-to-hit-right-now-is-are-the-books/29170#29170, I provided the following, problematic, wording (especially ...
- 133
2
votes
0
answers
105
views
What is the term for a noun that stands for more than one portion of an uncountable referent?
A noun that refers to one countable thing is singular.
A noun that stands for one countable portion, part, or unit of some non-countable thing is singulative.
See http://www-01.sil.org/...
- 8,780
9
votes
2
answers
299
views
What are the other types of grammatical numbers different from those determined by 'quantity of items'?
Different languages have different grammatical numbers. For most IE languages, these are Singular, Plural and, sometimes, Dual.
Other languages have grammatical numbers differentiated by the quantity ...
- 2,779
3
votes
1
answer
663
views
Are the demonstrative determiners "this" & "that" inflected to become "these" & "those" or are they different lexemes altogether?
If I'm not mistaken, nouns (and nominals) are the only words that can inflect for grammatical number. E.g.: cat (Sg), cats (Pl); writing (Sg), writings (Pl).
"This" and "that" as singular ...
- 1,582
4
votes
1
answer
137
views
Singular versus plural in certain locutions: Is there a name for this?
I wouldn't touch that idea with a ten-foot pole.
He's a tool maker.
In Germany, Catholics and Lutherans pay a church tax.
The zebra stripes indicate a pedestrian crossing.
He is a resident of an ...
- 663
3
votes
2
answers
193
views
What are the main criteria for a grammar mistake to become a new normative?
I am conducting a small research on the usage of dual in the Czech language. Normally, the dual is used only when referring to body parts (legs, eyes, knees etc) and the number 200. However, in spoken ...
- 131
5
votes
2
answers
223
views
Are there any languages in which grammatical number changes word order?
This has implications for programmatic localization. The example below isn't universally valid if, for some language, the noun placement must change, or the numerical adjective must be split from the ...
- 151
10
votes
17
answers
3k
views
Do any languages form plural pronouns by adding a suffix to the singular form?
Are there languages whose plural pronouns ('we', 'they', etc.) are formed from singular pronouns ('I', 'he', etc.) plus a plural marker?
For example, if English were such a language, instead of "we" ...
- 201
3
votes
3
answers
2k
views
What kind of pluralisation system does Welsh use?
Many nouns in Welsh have a the plural form that is shorter than the singular form (i.e. the singular form looks like the plural form + affix).
For example:
Singular
coeden 'tree'
seren 'star'
...
- 2,049
0
votes
1
answer
150
views
What are the different types of counting conjugations? [closed]
Different languages conjugate their nouns or verbs based on the number that they are referring to. For example, in languages such as English and French, there are two distinctions--singular and plural....
- 109
10
votes
2
answers
885
views
Proper terminology for the types of dual
I was reading an article about typology of Russian language by Gasparov, B. M. (“Structure of Russian language from typological point of view (Intro to sociogrammatics). Article 2. Morphology of the ...
- 209
11
votes
3
answers
565
views
Do any languages have verbal inflection with a plural object?
The verb in a language like English can inflect for person, for example:
I see the cat > he sees the cat
and the verb can inflect for tense:
I see the cat > I saw the cat
But do any languages ...
- 2,049
3
votes
1
answer
306
views
"Enumerators" and Approximate Inversion
There's a term that, as far as I know, goes back to traditional Celtic grammar called "enumerators". These are essentially words that inflect for number in weird ways when preceded by a numeral, that ...
- 734
7
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Is there a difference between plurality in semantics and in morphology?
With regard to morphology a common example of a lexeme is [dog, dogs] where dogs is the plural inflexion of the lemma dog modified by the -s suffix, marking plurality.
Although I can accept that dog ...
- 458
14
votes
1
answer
584
views
Are there languages in which plural classifiers co-occur with numerals?
I'm aware that a number of classifer languages have what might be called "plural classifiers" which -- unlike "normal" classifier -- force a plural, count interpretation, instead of being ambiguous ...
- 734
8
votes
2
answers
660
views
How do clusive forms arise?
Most non-European languages exhibit a clusivity (exclusive/inclusive) distinction. What are the common ways of developing new clusive forms and which clusivity is tied more tightly to the first person ...
- 209
18
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Are there any languages that mark nouns as mass?
Nouns like water, mud, furniture in English are odd with plural morphology (adding -s, as in furnitures), with numerals (three furniture(s)), and seem to have their own quantifier (much water but not ...
- 1,976
14
votes
7
answers
898
views
"Overabundant nouns" in Italian: do they exist in other languages?
Under my answer to that question, I talked about a category of nouns that exist in Italian. The italian name is "Nomi sovrabbondanti" or "sostantivi sovrabbondanti", the meaning is roughly "...
- 9,493
12
votes
2
answers
305
views
The paucal to denote between three to six individuals
According to the paper cited in this answer, in a "usual case" the paucal denotes between three to six individuals.
How common is the limit "three to six"? Is there any reason that those languages ...
- 8,571
22
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Paucal number without singular
I have usually seen the paucal number presented as intermediate between singular and plural in the languages that have it:
singular - just one
paucal - a few
plural - many
However, is there any ...
- 2,215