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Is there a productive morphological plural marker on nouns?
Summary
This question concerns a bound grammatical marker of plural number on nouns. This feature contrasts with GB318 Is plural number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element? which focuses on non-bound marking of plural number. For more on bound marking, please see this page. Bound marking of number on nouns derived from other word classes (such as adjectives or verbs) does not suffice for a 1. Reduplication (full or partial) does not count for this feature.
The marker should occur with an open set of nouns, not with a restricted set. Classes of animate nouns or human nouns are large and open enough. Kinship terms however are a restricted set since it is very hard to add new members.
Number marking is often fused with marking of other categories, such as definiteness/specificity or gender/noun class. It is possible for the number marker to also signal other functions and be coded as 1, as long as these other functions do not interfere with the number distinctions and as long as number marking is productive and regular.
Procedure
- Consider the section in the grammar that deals with number or nominal morphology.
- If the author describes a bound marker of plural number on the noun that occurs regularly, code 1.
- If the only marking of plural number occurs on nouns derived from other word classes (adjectives, verbs etc.) or on a small subset of all nouns, code 0.
- If the only marking of plural number is accomplished by reduplication, code 0.
- If the grammar mentions that plural number is not marked productively, or that it is marked somewhere else than on the noun, code as 0.
- If the grammar does not describe number marking at all and you have a reason to believe that the author may have missed it, code ?.
- If the grammar does not describe number, you encounter no examples of number marking, and the grammar is otherwise comprehensive, code 0.
Examples
Swedish (ISO 639-3: swe, Glottolog: swed1254)
Nouns in Swedish are regularly marked for plural number by a suffix -ar. This would be an example of a 1 code for this feature.
An illustration with the noun båt ‘boat’ (Teleman et al. 1999: 62):
singular | plural | |
---|---|---|
indefinite | båt | båt-ar |
definite | båt-en | båt-ar-na |
Samoan (ISO 639-3: smo, Glottolog: samo1305)
Nouns in Samoan do not take bound number marking. Number is instead expressed by articles. Articles differ for specificity and number. Plural number combined with specificity is in fact zero-marked, i.e. the absence of an article indicates plural number for specific nouns. Non-specific plural is overtly marked. Samoan is an example of 0 code for this feature.
An illustration with the noun fale ‘house’ (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 90):
singular | plural | |
---|---|---|
specific | le fale | fale |
non-specific | se fale | ni fale |
Further reading
Corbett, Greville G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
References
Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan reference grammar. (Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning 85.) Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.
Teleman, Ulf, Staffan Hellberg & Erik Andersson. 1999. Svenska Akademiens grammatik. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien.
Related Features
Morphological number marking
- GB042 Is there a productive overt morphological singular marker on nouns?
- GB043 Is there a productive morphological dual marker on nouns?
- GB165 Is there a productive morphological trial marker on nouns?
- GB166 Is there a productive morphological paucal marker on nouns?
Phonologically free number marking
- GB316 Is singular number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element?
- GB317 Is dual number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element?
- GB318 Is plural number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element?
- GB319 Is trial number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element?
- GB320 Is paucal number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element?
Number agreement within the noun phrase
- GB184 Can an adnominal property word agree with the noun in number?
- GB185 Can an adnominal demonstrative agree with the noun in number?
Other
- GB039 Is there nonphonological allomorphy of noun number markers?
- GB041 Are there several nouns (more than three) which are suppletive for number?
- GB046 Is there an associative plural marker for nouns?
Patron
Hedvig Skirgård