scholarly journals Majang nominal plurals with comparative notes

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-91
Author(s):  
Peter Unseth
Keyword(s):  
Number Marking ◽  
Plural Marking

This paper describes the complex Majang system of noun plural formation. Majang uses singulative suffixes, plural suffixes, and suppletive plural stems to mark number on nouns. Majang is seen to exemplify in many ways the *N/*K pattern of singular and plural marking as described by Bryan [1968] for many Nilo-Saharan languages. Tiersma's [1982] theory of "Local Markedness" is shown to provide an explanation for singulative marking on some nouns in Majang and other Surma languages. A comparison of Majang noun plurals with plural forms in other Surma languages allows the reconstruction of some number marking for Proto-Surma.

Plural marking on noun-associated forms

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-401
Author(s):  
Francesca Di Garbo
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Type ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Number Systems ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Type 3 ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractNumber systems can be morphosemantic or morphosyntactic, based on whether number marking is restricted to nouns or also extends to noun-associated forms, such as adnominal modifiers, predicates, and pronouns. While it is well-known that asymmetries in the distribution of plural marking on nouns can be due to lexico-semantic properties such as animacy and/or inherent number, the question of whether these properties also affect patterns of plural agreement has been less broadly investigated. This paper examines the distribution of plural agreement in 24 Cushitic (Afro-Asiatic) languages. The number systems of the languages of the sample are classified into three types, ranging from radically morphosemantic (Type 1) to radically morphosyntactic (Type 2). A subset of languages displays a combination of morphosemantic and morphosyntactic strategies, and thus qualifies as a mixed type (Type 3). In these languages, the distribution of plural agreement is largely lexically-specified: nouns denoting groups, masses, and collections are more likely to trigger plural agreement than other types of nouns. These results thus show that, similarly to the nominal domain, the lexical semantics of nouns may also affect plural marking on noun-associated forms. Furthermore, in Cushitic, radically morphosemantic and radically morphosyntactic number systems appear to be diachronically connected to each other, with the latter seemingly evolving from the former, as testified by ongoing variation and change in some of the sampled languages. The relevance of these findings for understanding the typology and evolution of number systems is discussed.

scholarly journals The syntax and morphology of nominal modification in Ògè

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Priscilla Lola Adenuga
Keyword(s):  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Short Forms ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
General Number ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Open Class

This dissertation investigates several aspects of nominal modification in Ògè, an understudied language of Benue-congo spoken in Àkókó Northwest in Nigeria. The study focuses on two areas of nominal modification namely, Nominal Attributive Modifiers (NAMs) and the strategies of number marking. The discussion and analysis of NAMs in the language reveal that Ògè belongs to the group of languages which lacks adjectives as a lexical category. NAMs are nominal and they are derived from an existing lexical category namely, verbs. Predicative modifiers and NAMs have forms that are similar to the long and short forms (LF & SF) of adjectives in languages in which adjectives form an open class, for example, Russian, SerBoCroatian (BCS) and German. Based on the Minimalist program, the dissertation reveals that unlike Russian, BCS, and German in which the discrepancies between the two forms of adjectives are related to definiteness (as in the case of BCS) and Agree, the discrepancies in the two forms of modifiers in Ògè are related to the fact that Ògè lacks adjectives and resorts into the nominalization of stative verbs in order to derive attributive forms. Using the analyses of adjuncts according to Truswell (2004) and Zeijlstra (2020), the dissertation proposes that NAMs are adjuncts in a modification structure while they are heads in possessive and genitive constructions. In addition, I propose that NAMs are attributive-only modifiers which modify the NP rather than the DP. The dissertation also investigates the strategies of number marking in Ògè. Unlike languages in which number marking is obligatory in the nominal domain (Hebrew, German, English), nouns in Ògè are not always marked for number. This means that nouns in Ògè have general number. The general number nature of nouns in Ògè is like that of the nouns in modifying plural marking languages namely, Halkomelem, Korean, Yucatec Maya and Yorùbá. However, I argue that unlike the modifying plural marking languages in which the Number Phrase (NumP) is not projected, NumP is projected in the nominal spine of Ògè, claiming that NumP bears an interpretable number feature which values the uninterpretable number feature in D. Argument in support of this comes from the interpretation of the noun in the presence of òtúro (an element which translates to the plural definite interpretation of the noun). I analyze òtúro as a plural determiner which occupies the D-head in the syntax of Ògè. The dissertation argues following Alexiadou (2019) that the locus of the occurrence of the marker of plurality in the nominal spine does not depend on its interpretation as a plural morpheme, rather, the locus of the occurrence of the element that is sensitive to the plural interpretation of the noun depends on other parameters which are definiteness, specificity and animacy.

scholarly journals Nominal Number Marking in Wolane

Aethiopica ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 135-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronny Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Number Marking ◽  
Noun Classes ◽  
Plural Marking

Countable common nouns in the East Gurage language Wolane are usually unmarked for number and belong to one of three noun classes based on the inherent gender feature of the nouns. First, it will be argued that morphological plural marking indicates plurality and specificity. Second, it will be shown that the interaction between the three noun classes and definiteness has various pragmatic effects. Finally, the findings for Wolane are compared with related East Gurage languages.

Number and the Mass–Count Distinction

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-64
Author(s):  
Alan Bale
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This chapter reviews the connections between number marking (specifically, singular and plural marking) and the mass–count distinction. It explores how different semantic theories of number marking interact with various ontological theories of the mass–count distinction. It also discusses a growing tension within the mass–count literature. On one hand, there are many semantic and syntactic similarities between mass nouns and plurals, which suggests that the two subcategories might have many features in common. On the other hand, verbal, auxiliary, and determiner agreement patterns suggest that mass nouns share certain syntactic properties with singular count nouns. Yet, singular count nouns and plural count nouns hardly share any properties in common, both in terms of their syntactic distribution and their semantic implications. The chapter discusses two potential resolutions to this growing tension.

Number in Sign Languages

2021 ◽  
pp. 643-660
Author(s):  
Roland Pfau ◽  
Markus Steinbach
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Specific Sign ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Grammatical Number

In sign languages, just as in many spoken languages, number can be marked on nouns, pronouns, and verbs, and quantifiers are used to specify quantity within noun phrases. The chapter does not address the expression of grammatical number in one specific sign language, but rather describes patterns found in various sign languages, focusing on modality-independent and modality-specific properties of number marking. As for the former, nominal and verbal plurals are commonly realized by reduplication. As for number-marking strategies specific to visual–spatial languages, it is found that sign languages employ the two hands (e.g. lexical plurality), the signing space in front of the signer's body (e.g. plural marking on predicates), and specific reduplication types that are not attested in spoken languages (e.g. sideward reduplication of certain nouns). In addition, the choice of pluralization strategy is determined by modality-specific phonological features, and we are thus dealing with phonologically conditioned allomorphy.

Plural marking on mass nouns

2018 ◽  
pp. 234-248
Author(s):  
Maria Kouneli
Keyword(s):  
Functional Projection ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Plural Marking

Mass nouns are generally incompatible with plural morphology in number-marking languages. Greek mass nouns, though, can freely pluralize. Chapter 11 shows that the meaning of plural mass nouns in Greek is that of ‘spread over a surface in a disorderly way’. The author argues that plural morphology on mass nouns in the language is the spell-out of number features on the nominalizing head n, unlike plural morphology on count nouns, which spells out the head of the functional projection NumP. She extends this analysis to other languages with plural marking on mass nouns, and argues that plural morphology on mass nouns is never the spellout of features on Num, which can only have the meaning associated with regular plural morphology on count nouns cross-linguistically.

Variable plural marking in Jamaican Patwa and Tok Pisin: A linguistic perspective

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-60
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Bobyleva
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Bare Plurals ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Linguistic Constraints ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThis article is concerned with plural marking in two English-lexified creoles, Jamaican Patwa and Tok Pisin. In addition to bare plurals, these creoles possess two overt strategies of plural marking—a free-standing morpheme and the suffix -s. The analytic and inflectional plural markers occur according to different linguistic constraints. It appears that the creoles use two conceptually and typologically different number marking systems — that of set noun languages, based on the opposition between singleton and collective sets, and that of singular object noun languages, based on the opposition between singular and plural individuals. This poses problems for the definition of the lexical semantics of the creole nouns if one assumes the existence of cross-linguistic differences. The analysis proposed here is based on the universalist approach to lexical semantics. Under this approach, individuated and collective (set) interpretations of plurals are encoded in the noun phrase structure.

scholarly journals Lexicalizing number and gender in Lunigiana

Nordlyd ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. pp ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Tarald Taraldsen
Keyword(s):  
Feminine Gender ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Vocabulary Item ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Italian Dialects ◽  
Masculine Gender

<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In this article, I present an analysis of gender and number marking on nouns in a group of Italian dialects. These dialects share the property that the plural morpheme is <em>-i-</em> in both the feminine and the masculine gender in both declension classes. But there is an asymmetry: in contexts where plurality is marked on a determiner, the plural marking <em>-i-</em> does not appear on nouns or adjectives in the feminine gender, but does appear on masculine nouns and adjectives. I argue that this asymmetry can be understood once it is recognized that a vocabulary item can lexicalize more than a single terminal, and that lexicalization is governed by the Superset Principle, i.e. if the lexicon associates a vocabulary item with a feature set <em>F</em>, it can lexicalize any constituent with the feature set <em>F'</em> provided <em>F</em> is a superset of <em>F'</em>.</span></p>

scholarly journals Plural definite NPs presuppose multiplicity via embedded exhaustification

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Mayr
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Plural Noun ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Bare Plurals ◽  
Singular Reference ◽  
Plural Marking

There is evidence from bare plurals that strongly suggests that plural-marking on noun phrases does not exclude singular reference. This paper discusses the problematic consequence that such a view has for the analysis of definite plurals, namely that their multiplicity inference is not straightforwardly predicted. We adduce novel evidence that this inference is a presupposition arising from the application of the definite article to the plural noun phrase and that it cannot be explained away by a presuppositional analysis of number-marking (Sauerland 2003). It is proposed that plural- and singular-marking are scalar items subject to obligatory exhaustification (Ivlieva 2013). We show that global exhaustification is, however, untenable in the case of definite plurals, contra (Magri 2014). The semantics of the definite article is shown to force exhaustifiation to occur below itself on the noun phrase directly. Having reached this conclusion for definite plurals, makes it possible to drastically simplify the derivation of the multiplicity inference even in bare plurals when compared to competing proposals such as (Spector 2007a; Zweig 2009). 

scholarly journals Numeral classifiers and number marking in Indo-Iranian

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chundra A. Cathcart ◽  
Andreas Hölzl ◽  
Gerhard Jäger ◽  
Paul Widmer ◽  
Balthasar Bickel
Keyword(s):  
Transition Rates ◽  
Posterior Distributions ◽  
Alternative Possibility ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Numeral Classifiers ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
European Languages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phylogenetic Model ◽  
Plural Marking

Abstract This paper investigates the origins of sortal numeral classifiers in the Indo-Iranian languages. While these are often assumed to result from contact with non-Indo-European languages, an alternative possibility is that classifiers developed as a response to the rise of optional plural marking. This alternative is in line with the so-called Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin (henceforth GSS) generalization. The GSS generalization holds that the presence of sortal numeral classifiers across languages is negatively correlated with obligatory plural marking on nouns. We assess the extent to which Indo-Iranian classifier development is influenced by loosening of restrictions on plural marking using a sample of 65 languages and a Bayesian phylogenetic model, inferring posterior distributions over evolutionary transition rates between typological states and using these rates to reconstruct the history of classifiers and number marking throughout Indo-Iranian, constrained by historically attested states. We find broad support for a diachronically oriented construal of the GSS generalization, but find no evidence for a strong bias against the synchronic co-occurrence of classifiers and obligatory plural marking. Inspection of the most likely diachronic trajectories in individual lineages in the tree shows a stronger effect of the GSS among Iranian languages than Indo-Aryan languages. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that the association of classifiers and optional number marking in Indo-Iranian is neither solely the effect of universal mechanisms nor of the contingency of local contact histories.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document