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.
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. <В
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 actually declined for number. This is because the typical plural suffix -s , is silent, and thus does not really indicate a change in pronunciation; the plural article or determiner is the real indicator of plurality (but see Liaison (French) for a common exception). However, plural number still exists in spoken French because a significant percentage of irregular plurals differ from the singular in pronunciation; for example, cheval "Horse" is pronounced [КѓЙ™val], while chevaux "horses" is pronounced [КѓЙ™vo].
Hebrew
In Hebrew, most nouns have only singular and plural forms, such as sefer/sfarim "book/books", but some have singular, plural, and dual forms, such as yom/yomaim/yamim "day/two days/[two or more] days ". Some words occur so often in pairs that what used to be the dual form is now the general plural, such as ayin/eynayim "Eye/eyes", used even in a sentence like, "The spider has eight eyes. "Adjectives, verbs, and pronouns have only singular and plural, with the plural forms of these being used with dual nouns.
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: virГЎg "Flower"; virГЎgok "flowers"; hat virГЎg "Six flowers". h2> Number agreement
Verb conjugation
In many languages, verbs are conjugated for 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.
Agreement in other lexical items
Adjectives often agree with the number of the noun they modify. For example, in French, one says un grand arbre [Е“ gКЂЙ‘t aКЂbКЂ] "A tall tree", but deux grands arbres [dГё gКЂЙ‘z aКЂbКЂ] "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, eg 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.) p> 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). h3> 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 TV distinction, an...
