Plural

From Citizendium
Revision as of 15:56, 12 October 2007 by imported>Robert W King (reword; i hope it's right!)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

A Plural word is one which by addition of an ending (typically "s") to a noun, represents more than one of that particular subject. In most languages it's directly opposed to the grammatical category of 'singular' but some languages have a third category, namely 'dualis'.

A Singular refers to one referent of a subject, while dualis refers to two referents (especially for living creatures). A plural refers to more than those units of referents.

Some singular words do refer to collections, groups, organisations and institutions, but are considered as one entity: collective words and some plural words do refer to one single referent. For example the word "sheep" refers to both one individual sheep, as well as a herd of sheep; the amount referenced depends on the context of the word used.

In most languages the plural of words is marked in some way that makes it immediately clear to the audience that this category has been chosen.