Grammatical number

In many languagespartsspeechinflected differently depending on whether theyrelated tonounwhose referent thereonly one instance (singular), or several (plural). Several languages also havedual grammatical number that expressesexistenceprecisely two instances ofnoun, andcollective number that expresseswhole class ofnouns. Other languages (onewhichEnglish) treat dual nouns as simply plural. Some other languages havetrial numberthree orpaucal number, expressing few -- but not many -- instances ofnoun, whichseparate fromsingular or plural numbers. Also, some languages havecollective nouns (e.g. "mankind") thatdeclined either as singular or plural, but semantically express multitude.

In Englishfollowingirregular examples:

• house (singular), houses (plural)
• mouse (singular), mice (plural)
• I (singular), we (plural)

And one regular example:

• encyclopedia (singular), encyclopedias (plural)

Non-borrowed English irregular nouns comeseveral forms:

Some voicefinal fricative whenplural:

• knife, knives (f>v)
• mouth, mouths (T>D)
• house, houses, (unique plural, s>z)

These pluraldistinctpronunciation frompossessive. Therealsotrendsome areasregularize somethese nouns.

Survivors ofOld English weak masculine declination add -en:

• ox, oxen
• auroch, aurochen (archaic)

Other -en addersirregular duedifferent reasons:

• child, children
• eye, eyen (rare)
• cow, kine (rare)
• brother, brethren (or brothers)

Some nouns have no plural, oridentical when pluralsingular:

• moose
• sheep
• fish (or fishes)
• species

Pronounsirregular precisely because theyso common:

• I, we
• you
• he she it, they

Some nounsrather transparently irregular becauseundergoprocessumlaut:

man, men foot, feet mouse, mice

Thereseveral different kinds depending instartingending vowel, but generally,converge on /i/.

Mostthese nounsalso umlautized inother Germanic languages.

The (regular) English noun plural marker, -s, has three variants:

• -/s/ next tovoiceless consonant other thanfricative
• -/z/ next tovoiced sound other thanfricative, orvowel
• -/@z/ or -/Iz/ next/s/, /z/, /S/, /Z/, /tS//dZ/ (the choicevowel depending on dialect)

In Slovene more complicated:

• babarija (old wives tale) (singular), babariji (two old wives tales) (dual), babarije (three old wives tales)
• hiša (house) (singular), hiši (two houses) (dual), tri hiše (three houses) (plural), šest hiš (six houses) (plural)
• miš (mouse) (singular), miši (two or three mice) (dual := plural)
• jaz (I) (singular), midva/midve (we) (dual + [Masculine/Feminine gender), mi/me (we) (plural [Ma/Fe gender])
• vrata (one door) (singular), dvoje vrat (two doors (dual), tri vrata (three doors (plural), [plural noundifferent or same form]
• babine (afterbirth period) (archaic meaning) (singular), babini (two afterbirth periods) (dual), babine (three afterbirth periods), [plural noundifferent or same form]
• človeštvo (mankind) (singular), človeštvi (two mankind) (dual), človeštva (three mankind), [collective noundifferent form]
  • This kindexamplesvery often used incorrecty (evenpublished or electronic dictionaries).

In Hebrew, one can similarly say:

• sefer (book) (singular), sfarim (books) (plural)
• yom (day) (singular), yamim (days) (plural), but yomaim (two days) (dual)

In termspronunciation, however,majoritynouns (and adjectives)Frenchnot actually declinednumber. The -s suffixnot actually pronounced unlessnext word starts withvowel (thiscalled liaison)thus does not really show anything;plural article or other word isreal indicatorplurality. However, plurals still existFrench because irregular nouns, such as those that end-l such as cheval, horse, form plurals indifferent way. Chevalpronounced [S@val], cheveauxpronounced [S@vo],this isreal showingnumber differences. The sametrueadjectives.

Not only nouns can be declined by number. In many languages, adjectivesdeclined according tonumber ofnounmodify. For example,French, one may say un arbre vert (a green tree),des arbres verts ([some] green trees). The word vert (green), insingular, becomes verts forplural (unlike English green, which remains green).

In many languages, verbsconjugated by number as well. Using French as an example again, one says je vois (I see), but nous voyons (we see). The verb voir (to see) infirst person changes from voissingular,voyonsplural. In English this occurs inthird person (she runs,run) but not first or second.

Normally verbs agreetheir subject nounnumber. ButAncient GreekSanskrit neuter plurals tooksingular verb. In English nouns collectively referringpeople may take singular verbs, as the committeemeeting; usethis varies by dialectlevelformality.

Other qualifiers may also agreenumber. The English article the does not,demonstratives this, that do, becoming these, those, andarticle a, anomitted or changedsome inplural. In FrenchGermandefinite articles have gender distinctions insingular but notplural. In Portugueseindefinite article um, uma has plural forms uns, umas.

See grammar, mass noun, collective noun.