In many languages, a plural (sometimes abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This default quantity is most commonly one (a form that represents this default quantity of one is said to be of singular number). Therefore, plurals most typically denote two or more of something, although they may also denote fractional, zero or negative amounts. An example of a plural is the English word boys, which corresponds to the singular boy.

Words of other types, such as verbs, adjectives and pronouns, also frequently have distinct plural forms, which are used in agreement with the number of their associated nouns.

Some languages also have a dual (denoting exactly two of something) or other systems of number categories. However, in English and many other languages, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers, except for possible remnants of dual number in pronouns such as both and either, and in tendency for stock phrases to use "two" as an umbrella term for "many" (eg "double jeopardy" includes prosecuting a person three, four or a dozen times on the same charge).

Use in systems of grammatical number

In many languages, there is also a dual number (used for indicating two objects). Some other grammatical numbers present in various languages include trial (for three objects) and paucal (for an imprecise but small number of objects). In languages with dual, trial, or paucal numbers, plural refers to numbers higher than those. However, numbers besides singular, plural, and (to a lesser extent) dual are extremely rare. Languages with numerical classifiers such as Chinese and Japanese lack any significant grammatical number at all, though they are likely to have plural personal pronouns.

Some languages (like Mele-Fila) distinguish between a plural and a greater plural. A greater plural refers to an abnormally large number for the object of discussion. The distinction between the paucal, the plural, and the greater plural is often relative to the type of object under discussion. For example, in discussing oranges, the paucal number might imply fewer than ten, whereas for the population of a country, it might be used for a few hundred thousand.

The Austronesian languages of Sursurunga and Lihir have extremely complex grammatical number systems, with singular, dual, paucal, greater paucal, and plural.

Traces of the dual and paucal can be found in some Slavic and Baltic languages (apart from those that preserve the dual number, such as Slovene). These are known as "pseudo-dual" and "pseudo-paucal" grammatical numbers. For example, Polish and Russian use different forms of nouns with the numerals 2, 3, or 4 (and higher numbers ending with these) than with the numerals 5, 6, etc. (genitive singular in Russian and nominative plural in Polish in the former case, genitive plural in the latter case). Also some nouns may follow different declension patterns when denoting objects which are typically referred to in pairs. For example, in Polish, the noun "", among other meanings, may refer to a human or animal eye or to a drop of oil on water. The plural of "" in the first meaning is "" (even if actually referring to more than two eyes), while in the second it is "" (even if actually referring to exactly two drops).

Traces of dual can also be found in Modern Hebrew. Biblical Hebrew had grammatical dual via the suffix as opposed to for masculine words. Contemporary use of a true dual number in Hebrew is chiefly used in words regarding time and numbers. However, in Biblical and Modern Hebrew, the pseudo-dual as plural of "eyes" "eye / eyes" as well as "hands", "legs" and several other words are retained. For further information, see .

Certain nouns in some languages have the unmarked form referring to multiple items, with an inflected form referring to a single item. These cases are described with the terms collective number and singulative number. Some languages may possess a massive plural and a numerative plural, the first implying a large mass and the second implying division (like the English modifer "respective[ly]"). For example, "the [combined] waters of the Atlantic Ocean" versus, "the waters of [each of] the Great Lakes [respectively]".

Ghil'ad Zuckermann uses the term superplural to refer to massive plural. He argues that the Australian Aboriginal Barngarla language has four grammatical numbers: singular, dual, plural and superplural. For example:

  • ' "emu" (singular)
  • ' "two emus" (dual)
  • ' "emus" (plural)
  • ' "a lot of emus", "heaps of emus" (superplural) Resolution varies, for example the Penn-Treebank tagset (~36 tags) has two tags: NNS - noun, plural, and NPS - Proper noun, plural, while the CLAWS 7 tagset (~149 tags) uses six: NN2 - plural common noun, NNL2 - plural locative noun, NNO2 - numeral noun, plural, NNT2 - temporal noun, plural, NNU2 - plural unit of measurement, NP2 - plural proper noun.

See also

  • Double plural
  • Homogeneity (linguistics)
  • Partitive plural
  • Plural quantification
  • Pluractionality
  • Pluralis majestatis
  • Reduplicated plural
  • Romance plurals

Notes

Further reading

  • Corbett, Greville. Number (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Huddleston, Rodney and Pullum, Geoffrey K., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, Suffolk, UK, 2002
  • Curme, George O., A Grammar of the English Language, Volume 1: Parts of Speech, D.C. Heath and Company, 1935
  • Opdycke, John B., Harper's English Grammar, Harper & Row, New York, New York, 1965
  • Jespersen, Otto, A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, v. II, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London, 1928
  • McDavid, Raven I. Jr. et al., The Plurals of Nouns of Measure in Spoken American English, Fries Festschrift, Ann Arbor, MI, 1963
  • Xu, Dan. 2012. Plurality and classifiers across languages in China. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • GNU gettext utilities (section 11.2.6 – Additional functions for plural forms) (Treatment of zero and the plurality based on the final digits)