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Grammatical number
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In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" or "more than one").
The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the referents of the marked noun or pronoun.
The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc.
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Encyclopedia
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" or "more than one").
The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the referents of the marked noun or pronoun.
The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see "Grammatical aspect".
Overview
Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. The most widespread distinction, as found in English and many other languages, involves a simple two-way number contrast between singular and plural (car / cars; child / children, etc.). Other more elaborate systems of number are described below.
Grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. As an example, consider the English sentences below:
- That apple on the table is fresh.
- Those two apples on the table are fresh.
The number of apples is marked on the noun — "apple", singular number (one item) vs. "apples", plural number (more than one item) —, on the demonstrative, "that/those", and on the verb, "is/are". Note that, especially in the second sentence, this information can be considered redundant, since quantity is already indicated by the numeral "two".
A language has grammatical number when its nouns are subdivided into morphological classes according to the quantity they express, such that:
- Every noun belongs to a single number class. (Number partitions nouns into disjoint classes.)
- Noun modifiers (such as adjectives) and verbs have different forms for each number class, and must be inflected to match the number of the nouns they refer to. (Number is an agreement category.)
This is the case in English: every noun is either singular or plural (a few, such as "fish", can be either, according to context), and at least some modifiers of nouns — namely the demonstratives, the personal pronouns, the articles, and verbs — are inflected to agree with the number of the nouns they refer to: "this car" and "these cars" are correct, while "*this cars" or "*these car" are ungrammatical. Only count nouns can be freely used in the singular and in the plural. Mass nouns, like "wine", "silverware" and "wisdom", are normally used only in the singular . Many languages distinguish between count nouns and mass nouns.
Not all languages have number as a grammatical category. In those that do not, quantity must be expressed either directly, with numerals, or indirectly, through optional quantifiers. However, many of these languages compensate for the lack of grammatical number with an extensive system of measure words.
There is a hierarchy among number categories: No language distinguishes a trial unless having a dual, and no language has dual without a plural.
Number in specific languages
English
English is typical of most world languages, in distinguishing only between singular and plural number. The plural form of a word is usually created by adding the suffix -(e)s. Common exceptions include the pronouns, which have irregular plurals, as in I versus we, because they are ancient and frequently used words.
French
In its written form, French declines nouns for number (singular or plural). In speech, however, the majority of nouns (and adjectives) are not for the most part declined for number. This is because the typical plural suffix -s or -es, is silent, and thus does not really indicate a change in pronunciation. However:
- the spoken distinction can reappear when liaison occurs and
- some plurals do differ from the singular in pronunciation; for example, masculine singulars in -al typically form masculine plurals in -aux .
- Proper nouns are not pluralized, even in writing. (Les voitures, but Les Peugeot 404)
Normally, the article or determiner is the primary indicator of number.
Hebrew
In Modern Hebrew, a Semitic language, most nouns have only singular and plural forms, such as ??? "book" and ????? "books", but some have distinct dual forms using a distinct dual suffix (largely nouns pertaining to numbers or time, such as ?????? "two thousand" and ??????? "two weeks"), some use this dual suffix for their regular plurals (largely body parts that tend to come in pairs, such as ?????? "eyes", as well as some that don't, such as ?????? "teeth"), and some are inherently dual (such as ??????? "pants" and ??????? "bicycle"). Adjectives, verbs, and pronouns agree with their subjects' or antecedents' numbers, but only have a two-way distinction between singular and plural; dual nouns entail plural adjectives, verbs, and pronouns.
Russian
Modern Russian has a singular vs plural number system, but the declension of noun phrases containing numeral expressions is subject to complex rules. For example, "? ???? ???? ???? ????? / ??? ????? / ???? ????" ("I have one book-nom.sing. / three book-gen.sing. / five book-gen.plur."). See Dual number: Slavic languages for a discussion of number phrases in Russian and other Slavic languages.
The numeral "one" has a plural form, used with pluralia tantum: ???? ?????? / ???? ???? "one pair of jeans, one clock".
Types of number
Singular versus plural
In most languages with grammatical number, nouns, and sometimes other parts of speech, have two forms, the singular, for one instance of a concept, and the plural, for more than one instance. Usually, the singular is the unmarked form of a word, and the plural is obtained by inflecting the singular. This is the case in English: car/cars, box/boxes, man/men. There may be exceptional nouns whose plural is identical to the singular: one fish / two fish.
Singulative versus collective
Some languages differentiate between an unmarked form, the collective, which is indifferent in respect to number, and a marked form for single entities, called the singulative in this context. For example, in Welsh, moch ("pigs") is a basic form, whereas a suffix is added to form mochyn ("pig"). It is the collective form which is more basic, and it is used as an adjectival modifier, e.g. cig moch ("pig meat", "pork"). The collective form is therefore similar in many respects to an English mass noun like "rice", which in fact refers to a collection of items which are logically countable. However, English has no productive process of forming singulative nouns (just phrases such as "a grain of rice"). Therefore, English cannot be said to have a singulative number.
In other languages, singulatives can be regularly formed from collective nouns; e.g. Standard Arabic ??? ?ajar "stone" ? ???? ?ajara "(individual) stone", ??? baqar "cattle" ? ???? baqara "(single) cow". In Russian, the suffix for forming singulative form is -??- -in-; e.g. ???? grad "hail" ? ??????? gradina "hailstone", ??? lyod "ice" ? ?????? l'dina "block of ice". In both Russian and Arabic, the singulative form always takes on the feminine gender.
Dual
The distinction between a "singular" number (one) and a "plural" number (more than one) found in English is not the only possible classification. Another one is "singular" (one), "dual" (two) and "plural" (more than two). Dual number existed in Proto-Indo-European, persisted in many of the now extinct ancient Indo-European languages that descended from it—Sanskrit, Ancient Greek and Gothic for example—and can still be found in a few modern Indo-European languages such as Icelandic and Slovene language. Many more modern Indo-European languages show residual traces of the dual, as in the English distinctions both vs. all, either vs. any, twice vs. <number> times (an archaic thrice also exists, meaning "three times"), and so on.
Many Semitic languages also have dual number. For instance, in Arabic all nouns can have singular, plural, or dual forms. For non-broken plurals, masculine plural nouns end with ?? and feminine plural nouns end with ?? , whilst ?? , is added to the end of a noun to indicate that it is dual (even among nouns that have broken plurals).
Trial
The trial number is a grammatical number referring to 'three items', in contrast to 'singular' (one item), 'dual' (two items), and 'plural' (four or more items). Tolomako, Lihir, Manam and Tok Pisin (though only in its pronouns) have trial number.
Quadrual
The quadrual number denotes four items together, as trial does three, supra. Extremely rare, it exists in Marshallese, spoken in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It has also been alleged, somewhat pejoratively, by Aristotle to have been used in the ancient Thracian language.
Paucal
Paucal number, for a few (as opposed to many) instances of the referent (e.g. in Hopi, Warlpiri and in Arabic for some nouns). See Plural for some examples.
Distributive plural
Distributive plural number, for many instances viewed as independent individuals (e.g. in Navajo).
Inverse number
The languages of the Kiowa-Tanoan family have three numbers — singular, dual, and plural — and exhibit an unusual system of marking number, called inverse number (or number toggling). In this scheme, every countable noun has what might be called its "inherent" or "expected" numbers, and is unmarked for these. When a noun appears in an "inverse" (atypical) number, it is inflected to mark this. For example, in Jemez, where nouns take the ending -sh to denote an inverse number, there are four noun classes which inflect for number as follows:
As can be seen, class-I nouns are inherently singular, class-II nouns are inherently plural, class-III nouns are inherently singular or plural. Class-IV nouns cannot be counted and are never marked with -sh. (From Sprott 1992, p. 53.)
A similar system is seen in Kiowa (Kiowa is distantly related to Tanoan languages like Jemez):
(See also Taos language: Number inflection for a description of inverse number suffixes in another Kiowa-Tanoan language.)
Formal expression of number
Synthetic languages typically distinguish grammatical number by inflection. (Note that analytic languages, such as Chinese, don't have grammatical number.) In most languages, the singular is formally unmarked, whereas the plural is marked in some way. Other languages, most notably the Bantu languages, mark both the singular and the plural, for instance Swahili (see example below). The third logical possibility, rarely found in languages, is an unmarked plural contrasting with marked singular. Below are some examples of number affixes for nouns (where the inflecting morphemes are underlined):
- Affixation (by adding or removing prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or circumfixes):
- Estonian puu "tree, wood" (singular) — puud "trees, woods" (plural)
- Finnish: lehmä "cow" (singular) — lehmät "cows" (plural)
- Slovenian: lipa "linden" (singular) — lipi "linden" (dual) — lipe "linden" (plural)
- Sanskrit puru?as "man" (singular) - puru?au "two men" (dual) - puru?as "men" (plural)
- Swahili: mtoto "child" (singular) — watoto "children" (plural)
- Luganda: omusajja "man" (singular) — abasajja "men" (plural)
- Berber: ???? amghar "woman" (singular) — ????? tmghart "women" (plural)
- Georgian: ???? k'aci "man" (singular) - ?????? k'acebi "men" (where -i is the nominative case marker)
- Simulfixion (through various kinds of internal sound alternations):
- Arabic: ?????? kitab "book" (singular) — ????? kutub "books" (plural)
- Apophony (alternating between different vowels):
- Welsh: maharen "ram" - meheryn "rams"
- Reduplication (through doubling):
- Indonesian: orang "person" (singular) — orang-orang "people" (plural)
- Somali: buug "book" (singular) — buug-ag "books" (plural)
- Tonality (by changing a drag tone to a push tone)
- Limburgish: daãg "day" (singular) — daàg "days" (plural)
Elements marking number may appear on nouns and pronouns in dependent-marking languages or on verbs and adjectives in head-marking languages.
In the English sentence above, the plural suffix -s is added to the noun cowboy. In the Western Apache, a head-marking language, equivalent, a plural prefix da- is added to the verb yilch’ígó’aah "he is teaching him", resulting in yilch’ídagó’aah "he is teaching them" while noun idilohí "cowboy" is unmarked for number.
Number particles
Plurality is sometimes marked by a specialized number particle (or number word). This is frequent in Australian and Austronesian languages. An example from Tagalog is the word mga: compare bahay "house" with mga bahay "houses". In Kapampangan, certain nouns optionally denote plurality by secondary stress: ing laláki "man" and ing babái "woman" become ding láláki "men" and ding bábái "women".
Obligatoriness of number marking
In many languages, such as English, number is obligatorily expressed in every grammatical context; in other languages, however, number expression is limited to certain classes of nouns, such as animates or referentially prominent nouns (as with proximate forms in most Algonquian languages, opposed to referentially less prominent obviative forms).
A very common situation is for plural number to not be marked if there is any other overt indication of number, as for example in Hungarian: virág "flower"; virágok "flowers"; hat virág "six flowers".
Number agreement
Verbs
In many languages, verbs are conjugated according to number. Using French as an example, one says je vois (I see), but nous voyons (we see). The verb voir (to see) changes from vois in the first person singular to voyons in the plural. In everyday English, this often happens in the third person (she sees, they see), but not in other grammatical persons, except with the verb to be.
Adjectives and determiners
Adjectives often agree with the number of the noun they modify. For example, in French, one says un grand arbre "a tall tree", but deux grands arbres "two tall trees". The singular adjective grand becomes grands in the plural, unlike English "tall", which remains unchanged.
Other determiners may agree with number. In English, the demonstratives "this", "that" change to "these", "those" in the plural, and the indefinite article "a", "an" is either omitted or changes to "some". In French and German, the definite articles have gender distinctions in the singular but not the plural. In Spanish and Portuguese, both definite and indefinite articles are inflected for gender and number, e.g. Portuguese o, a "the" (singular, masc./fem.), os, as "the" (plural, masc./fem.); um, uma "a(n)" (singular, masc./fem.), uns, umas "some" (plural, masc./fem.)
In the Finnish sentence Yöt ovat pimeitä "Nights are dark", each word referring to the plural noun yöt "nights" ("night" = yö) is pluralized (night-PL is-PL dark-PL-partitive).
Exceptions
Sometimes, grammatical number will not represent the actual quantity. For example, in Ancient Greek neuter plurals took a singular verb. The plural form of a pronoun may also be applied to a single individual as a sign of importance, respect or generality, as in the pluralis majestatis, the T-V distinction, and the generic "you", found in many languages, or, in English, when using the singular "they" for gender-neutrality.
In Arabic, the plural of a non-human noun (one that refers to an animal or to an inanimate entity regardless of whether the noun is grammatically masculine or feminine in the singular) is treated as feminine singular—this is called the inanimate plural. For example:
- ??? ???? (rajul jamil) 'beautiful/handsome man': rajul (man) is masculine singular, so it takes the masculine singular adjective jamil.
- ??? ???? (bayt jamil) 'beautiful house': bayt (house) is masculine singular, so it takes the masculine singular jamil.
- ??? ???? (kalb jamil) 'beautiful dog':kalb (dog) is masculine singular, so it takes the masculine singular jamil.
- ??? ????? (bint jamilah) 'beautiful girl': bint is feminine singular, so it takes the feminine singular jamilah.
- ????? ????? (sayyarah jamilah) 'beautiful car': sayyarah is feminine singular, so it takes the feminine singular jamilah.
- ???? ???? (rijal jimal) 'beautiful/handsome men': rijal (men) is masculine plural, so it takes the masculine plural jimal.
- ???? ?????? (banat jamilat) 'beautiful girls': banat is feminine plural, so it takes the feminine plural jamilat.
but
- ???? ????? (buyut jamilah) 'beautiful houses': buyut (houses) is non-human plural, and so takes the inanimate plural (feminine singular) jamilah.
- ?????? ????? (sayyarat jamilah) 'beautiful cars': sayyarat is non-human plural, and so takes the inanimate plural jamilah.
- ???? ????? (kilab jamilah) 'beautiful dogs': kilab is non-human plural, and so takes the inanimate plural jamilah.
Collective nouns
A collective noun is a word that designates a group of objects or beings regarded as a whole, such as "flock", "team", or "corporation". Although many languages treat collective nouns as singular, in others they may be interpreted as plural. In British English, phrases such as the committee are meeting are common (the so-called agreement in sensu "in meaning"; with the meaning of a noun, rather than with its form). The use of this type of construction varies with dialect and level of formality.
Semantic vs. grammatical number
All languages are able to specify the quantity of referents. They may do so by lexical means with words such as English a few, some, one, two, five hundred. However, not every language has a grammatical category of number. Grammatical number is expressed by morphological and/or syntactic means. That is, it is indicated by certain grammatical elements, such as through affixes or number words. Grammatical number may be thought of as the indication of semantic number through grammar.
Languages that express quantity only by lexical means lack a grammatical category of number. For instance, in Khmer, neither nouns nor verbs carry any grammatical information concerning number: such information can only be conveyed by lexical items such as khlah 'some', pii-bey 'a few', and so on..
Auxiliary languages
Auxiliary languages often have fairly simple systems of grammatical number. In one of the most common schemes (found, for example, in Interlingua and Ido), nouns and pronouns distinguish between singular and plural, but not other numbers, and adjectives and verbs do not display any number agreement. Note however that in Esperanto adjectives must agree in both number and case with the nouns that they qualify.
See also
Bibliography
- Beard, R. (1992) Number. In W. Bright (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Linguistics.
- Corbett, G. (2000). Number. Cambridge University Press.
- Greenberg, Joseph H. (1972) Numeral classifiers and substantival number: Problems in the genesis of a linguistic type. Working Papers on Language Universals (Stanford University) 9. 1-39.
- Laycock, Henry. (2005) 'Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns' Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
- Laycock, Henry. (2006) Words without Objects. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Lunt, Horace G. (1982) Fundamentals of Russian. Revised edition (1968). Reprinted by Slavica Publishers, Columbus Ohio.
- Merrifield, William (1959). Classification of Kiowa nouns. International Journal of American Linguistics, 25, 269-271.
- Mithun, Marianne (1999). The languages of native North America (pp. 81-82, 444-445). Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-23228-7.
- Nicolas, David (2008). "Mass nouns and plural logic". Linguistics and Philosophy 31.2, pp.211-244 http://d.a.nicolas.free.fr/Nicolas-Mass-nouns-and-plural-logic-Revised-2.pdf
- Sprott, Robert (1992). Jemez syntax. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, USA).
- Sten, Holgar (1949) Le nombre grammatical. (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague, 4.) Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
- Watkins, Laurel J.; & McKenzie, Parker. (1984). A grammar of Kiowa. Studies in the anthropology of North American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-4727-3.
- Weigel, William F. (1993). Morphosyntactic toggles. Papers from the 29th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (Vol. 29, pp. 467-478). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
- Wiese, Heike (2003). Numbers, language, and the human mind. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-83182-2.
- Wonderly, Gibson, and Kirk (1954). Number in Kiowa: Nouns, demonstratives, and adjectives. International Journal of American Linguistics, 20, 1-7.
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