Number (in grammar ) is a grammatical category expressing the quantitative characteristic of an object.
Separation into singular and plural is probably a relic of that distant era, when the account was rarely used in practice, and grammatically expressed forms, meaning "one" and "many", were enough in most practical cases .
There are various ways to represent the plural:
- Repetitions : “mountain” ( 山 山 Yam ) , “mountains” ( 山 々 Yamayama ) .
- Endings , prefixes , suffixes : “mole” - “moles”.
- Supplementary number: "man" - "people".
- Vowel change (the so-called "broken multiple"): " Arab. kitab ”-“ book ”,“ qutub ”-“ books ”.
Some authors also consider counting words (numbering, classifiers) as a plural expression, for example, in the expressions “forty heads of cattle”, “three crusts of bread” the words “heads”, “crusts” are numbering. This view is not generally accepted.
In different languages
Many languages do not have a grammatical number. In many languages of the world there are two numbers - singular and plural. Some languages also have a dual number , a triple number or a spider number (to indicate a small number of objects).
In some languages, the plural is indicated by repetition (repetition of the word), for example, in the Indonesian language : orang - "man", orang-orang - "people".
In the Old Russian language there was a dual number , the remains of which can be traced for paired objects, such as “ears”, “shoulders”, etc., and when using some words with numbers up to 4: two houses, three houses, four houses, but five houses … etc.
The dual languages include Arabic , Slovenian , Icelandic and others, as well as many ancient languages: Old Slavonic , Ancient Greek , Gothic , Sanskrit and others.
Languages that do not have a grammatical category of numbers, nevertheless, have all the capabilities to convey the meaning of quantity. This is usually done by adding words similar to the Russian “one”, “two”, “several”, “each”, “many” and so on. In Russian, quantitative meaning can be conveyed in both ways or in a combination of these: “fleas are small,” “each flea is small,” “all fleas are small.” In some languages, for example, Hungarian , the plural is not combined with other ways of expressing the quantity: virág "flower"; virágok "flowers"; hat virág "six flowers".
In Russian , along with the singular and plural numbers, there are the following phenomena of a numerical nature:
- collective number of nouns, consistent with plural adjectives ( teeth , sons , stakes , knees , leaves , roots versus plural teeth , sons , colas , knees , sheets , roots ), cf. Old Slavonic leaves , stone , root , brotherhood ;
- the collective number of nouns, consistent with the singular adjectives ( fool , beast versus plural fools , animals ), but formed, apparently, similar to the previous one;
- plural expressing the totality of volumes or types of uncountable noun ( sands , water , running ).
In the Russian language, the plural without numerals and other words explaining the number can have the following meanings:
- “More than one”: “teenagers entered our entrance” = “more than one teenager entered our entrance”;
- “Each”: “electrons have a negative charge” = “each electron has a negative charge”;
- “Typical”: “birds can fly” = “typical birds can fly”;
- “Each of the above”: “Ivan and Peter came to us. The guests turned out to be nice people ”;
- “Majority”: “Germans in a referendum voted to abolish the presidency”;
- “Large group”: “cockroaches can make life in the house unbearable”;
- generic concept: “birds are a class of vertebrates” (although not a single bird is a class);
- some games: catching up, hide and seek, etc.
- some items: “pitchforks”, “trousers”, “scissors”, “watches”, etc .;
- the monarch’s speech : “We are the highest command”;
- polite address: “Ivan Ilyich, will you look at us?”
The presence of different values in the plural is often used to mislead, for example: "doctors consider our medicine to be the best remedy for insomnia."
See also
- Singularia tantum
- Pluralia tantum