In linguistics, collective number and singulative number are terms used when the grammatical number for a multiple quantity (more than one) is the unmarked form of a noun. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a Morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null Affix (an empty string of phonological An very rough example can be provided in English by the word "snowflake", which is formed from "snow", even though the former designates a part and the latter designates the whole. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States This is the opposite of the more common situation, where the singular of a noun is unmarked, and the plural is marked. Singulatives are described and explained by Tiersma (1982) and Corbett (2000).
The collective number should not be confused with collective nouns. In Linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects where "objects" can be People, Animals Inanimate things
Examples
Welsh has two systems of grammatical number. Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic Singular/plural nouns correspond to the singular/plural number system of English. Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world Welsh noun plurals are unpredictable and formed in several ways: by adding a suffix to the end of the word (usually -au), e. In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word g. tad and tadau, through vowel mutation, e. g. bachgen and bechgyn, or through a combination of the two, e. g. chwaer and chwiorydd.
The other system of number is the collective/unit. In this system, nouns form the singular from the plural, by adding the suffix -yn (for masculine nouns) or -en (for feminine nouns): adar "birds/flock of birds" / aderyn "bird"; mefus "a bed of strawberries" / mefusen "a strawberry". The form thus derived is sometimes called the singulative. Most nouns which inflect according to this system designate objects that are frequently found in groups, for example, plant "children" and plentyn "a child", or coed "forest" and coeden "a tree". In dictionaries, the plural is often given first.
Some languages have collectives but no grammatical plural. For example, Chinese, Japanese (except in a small number of cases), and Korean do not have plurals. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system However, groups of people can be referred to, either by context or periphrastically (i. e. , with additional words or phrases).
An example from Japanese:
- Tanaka-san "Mr/Ms Tanaka"
- Tanaka-san-tachi "The Tanakas", "Tanaka & Co. ", "Tanaka and friends", etc.
Singulative markers are commonly used in Nilotic and Surmic languages. The Nilotic languages are a group of Eastern Sudanic languages spoken across a wide area between southern Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic Majang: ŋεεti-n 'louse', ŋεεti 'lice' (Bender 1983:124).
See also
References
- Bender, M. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world Lionel. 1983. Majang phonology and morphology. In Nilo-Saharan Language Studies, 114-147. East Lansing: Michigan State University.
- Corbett, Greville G. 2000. Number. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
- Tiersma, Peter Meijes. 1982. Local and General Markedness. Language 58. 4: 832-849
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