Number
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 August 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 August 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0135
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 August 2018
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 August 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0135
Introduction
Through the category of number, languages express conceptual oppositions centering on the contrast between “one” and “not-one.” In the most familiar case, this opposes a “singular” form of nouns, referring to individuals, to a “plural” form usually (but not always) referring to collections of individuals. An important task consists, then, in distinguishing nouns that are plural as a grammatical property from others whose meaning is “not-one,” like mass nouns or collectives. Some languages have other non-singular values, like “dual” or “paucal.” In this function, number specifies nouns, and affects other lexical categories by agreement; in addition, some languages display an inherently verbal number, which specifies verbs as true of individual or multiple events. Variation is great, as many languages lack number altogether, while others differ in the array of number values, their meaning, their applicability across the lexicon, and their syntactic and morphological properties. One major strand of research aims at describing this typology and accounting for it in terms of universal principles. Another aims at making explicit the meaning of number-inflected expressions, typically by constructing formal models of their denotation with rigorous mathematical tools. Recent years have seen an increasing convergence between the two lines of investigation, complemented by a significant body of work on number within syntactic frameworks, in both a language-specific and a comparative perspective. In addition, a cognitive perspective focuses on the psychological and philosophical bases of the use of grammatical number and numerically quantified expressions. At the intersection of formal semantics and philosophy, the proper regimentation of plurally referring expressions is also an important topic in formal logic. As a linguistic category, then, number has syntactic, semantic, and morphological dimensions; its interpretation calls for precise formal models based on an appropriate logic; and its use is rooted in the conceptualization of entities, and it relates to fundamental aspects of human cognition.
General Overviews
The comprehensive monograph Corbett 2000 stands out as the single most complete and authoritative survey, very accessible but addressing substantial theoretical issues. Although it does not ignore the formal semantic literature, its perspective is mostly morphological-typological. Several surveys are limited to semantics, and they are listed in the corresponding category. Corbett 2006 provides a convenient summary, within the scope of an encyclopedia entry. From a rather different perspective, Biermann 1982 overviews the relation between conceptualization and the various grammatical expression of number. Link 1998 is based largely on this type of typological approach to linguistic conceptualization and relates it to formal semantic models. In a similar vein, but deriving from a different tradition of studies and with less emphasis on linguistic typology, Hirtle 1982 and Hurford 1987 offer global perspectives on number and its linguistic expression based on their views on the psychological and communicative bases of language.
Biermann, Anna. 1982. Die grammatische Kategorie Numerus. In Apprehension: Das sprachliche Erfassen von Gegenständen. I: Bereich und Ordnung der Phänomene. Edited by Hansjakob Seiler and Christian Lehmann, 229–243. Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr.
Now somewhat dated, and distant from current mainstream research in morphology, syntax, and semantics, but still a very instructive overview of the conceptualization of unity, quantity, and plurality through different grammatical means across the world’s languages.
Corbett, Greville. 2000. Number. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Comprehensive description of the full range of phenomena from a unified analytical standpoint. It discusses previous analyses and often offers novel ones. Very accessible; does not presuppose mastery of any theoretical framework, even though it is theoretically committed. Not much on results from formal semantics. Extensive bibliography.
Corbett, Greville. 2006. Number. In Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 2d ed. Edited by Keith Brown, 724–731. Oxford: Elsevier.
Summary of Corbett 2000 without detailed analyses of specific phenomena. Condenses in a single entry a useful typological overview of all aspects of number.
Hirtle, Walter H. 1982. Number and inner space: A study of grammatical number in English. Quebec: Presses Universitaires de Laval.
An informal psychological interpretation of the values of grammatical singular and plural, in terms of dynamic mental operations along a continuum between “continuate” and “discontinuate” inner space. Rather distant from linguistic mainstream (especially from formal approaches); useful discussion of noncanonical interpretations.
Hurford, James. 1987. Language and number: The emergence of a cognitive system. Oxford: Blackwell.
A broad, nontechnical discussion of the cognitive bases of language and number, centered on the analysis of grammatical number and numeral constructions to develop a global view of language combining a social-communicative and an individual-psychological perspective.
Link, Godehard. 1998. Quantity and number. In Algebraic semantics in language and philosophy. By Godehard Link, 213–229. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
In a few pages, addresses key points on conceptual individuation and grammatical countability, expression of quantity through number and classifiers, kind-level readings (as opposed to object-level) and transnumeral readings, distributive and collective readings for entities and events; except for the conclusion, it is all in nontechnical and very accessible terms. (Reprinted from Dietmar Zaefferer, ed., Semantic universals and universal semantics [Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris, 1991], pp. 133–149.)
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Acceptability Judgments
- Accessibility Theory in Linguistics
- Acquisition, Second Language, and Bilingualism, Psycholin...
- Adjectives
- Adpositions
- Affixation
- African Linguistics
- Afroasiatic Languages
- Agreement
- Algonquian Linguistics
- Altaic Languages
- Ambiguity, Lexical
- Analogy in Language and Linguistics
- Anaphora
- Animal Communication
- Aphasia
- Applicatives
- Applied Linguistics, Critical
- Arawak Languages
- Argument Structure
- Artificial Languages
- Attention and Salience
- Australian Languages
- Austronesian Linguistics
- Auxiliaries
- Balkans, The Languages of the
- Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan
- Berber Languages and Linguistics
- Bilingualism and Multilingualism
- Biology of Language
- Blocking
- Borrowing, Structural
- Caddoan Languages
- Caucasian Languages
- Causatives
- Celtic Languages
- Celtic Mutations
- Chomsky, Noam
- Chumashan Languages
- Classifiers
- Clauses, Relative
- Clinical Linguistics
- Cognitive Linguistics
- Colonial Place Names
- Comparative Reconstruction in Linguistics
- Comparative-Historical Linguistics
- Complementation
- Complexity, Linguistic
- Compositionality
- Compounding
- Comprehension, Sentence
- Computational Linguistics
- Conditionals
- Conjunctions
- Connectionism
- Consonant Epenthesis
- Constructions, Verb-Particle
- Contrastive Analysis in Linguistics
- Conversation Analysis
- Conversation, Maxims of
- Conversational Implicature
- Cooperative Principle
- Coordination
- Copula
- Creoles
- Creoles, Grammatical Categories in
- Critical Periods
- Cross-Language Speech Perception and Production
- Cyberpragmatics
- Default Semantics
- Definiteness
- Dementia and Language
- Dene (Athabaskan) Languages
- Dené-Yeniseian Hypothesis, The
- Dependencies
- Dependencies, Long Distance
- Derivational Morphology
- Determiners
- Dialectology
- Dialogue
- Diglossia
- Disfluency
- Distinctive Features
- Dravidian Languages
- Ellipsis
- Endangered Languages
- English as a Lingua Franca
- English, Early Modern
- English, Old
- Ergativity
- Eskimo-Aleut
- Euphemisms and Dysphemisms
- Evidentials
- Exemplar-Based Models in Linguistics
- Existential
- Existential Wh-Constructions
- Experimental Linguistics
- Fieldwork
- Fieldwork, Sociolinguistic
- Finite State Languages
- First Language Attrition
- Formulaic Language
- Francoprovençal
- French Grammars
- Frisian
- Gabelentz, Georg von der
- Gender
- Genealogical Classification
- Generative Syntax
- Genetics and Language
- Gestures
- Grammar, Categorial
- Grammar, Cognitive
- Grammar, Construction
- Grammar, Descriptive
- Grammar, Functional Discourse
- Grammars, Phrase Structure
- Grammaticalization
- Harris, Zellig
- Heritage Languages
- History of Linguistics
- History of the English Language
- Hmong-Mien Languages
- Hokan Languages
- Honorifics
- Humor in Language
- Hungarian Vowel Harmony
- Iconicity
- Ideophones
- Idiolect
- Idiom and Phraseology
- Imperatives
- Indefiniteness
- Indo-European Etymology
- Inflected Infinitives
- Information Structure
- Innateness
- Interface Between Phonology and Phonetics
- Interjections
- Intonation
- IPA
- Irony
- Iroquoian Languages
- Islands
- Isolates, Language
- Jakobson, Roman
- Japanese Word Accent
- Jones, Daniel
- Juncture and Boundary
- Khoisan Languages
- Kiowa-Tanoan Languages
- Kra-Dai Languages
- Labov, William
- Language Acquisition
- Language and Law
- Language Contact
- Language Documentation
- Language, Embodiment and
- Language for Specific Purposes/Specialized Communication
- Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Language Geography
- Language Ideologies and Language Attitudes
- Language in Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Language Nests
- Language Revitalization
- Language Shift
- Language Standardization
- Language, Synesthesia and
- Languages of Africa
- Languages of the Americas, Indigenous
- Languages of the World
- Learnability
- Lexemes
- Lexical Access, Cognitive Mechanisms for
- Lexical Semantics
- Lexical-Functional Grammar
- Lexicography
- Lexicography, Bilingual
- Lexicon
- Linguistic Accommodation
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic Areas
- Linguistic Landscapes
- Linguistic Prescriptivism
- Linguistic Profiling and Language-Based Discrimination
- Linguistic Relativity
- Linguistics, Educational
- Listening, Second Language
- Literature and Linguistics
- Loanwords
- Machine Translation
- Maintenance, Language
- Mande Languages
- Markedness
- Mass-Count Distinction
- Mathematical Linguistics
- Mayan Languages
- Mental Health Disorders, Language in
- Mental Lexicon, The
- Mesoamerican Languages
- Metaphor
- Metathesis
- Metonymy
- Minority Languages
- Mixed Languages
- Mixe-Zoquean Languages
- Modification
- Mon-Khmer Languages
- Morphological Change
- Morphology
- Morphology, Blending in
- Morphology, Subtractive
- Movement
- Munda Languages
- Muskogean Languages
- Nasals and Nasalization
- Negation
- Niger-Congo Languages
- Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages
- Northeast Caucasian Languages
- Nostratic
- Number
- Numerals
- Oceanic Languages
- Papuan Languages
- Penutian Languages
- Philosophy of Language
- Phonetics
- Phonetics, Acoustic
- Phonetics, Articulatory
- Phonological Research, Psycholinguistic Methodology in
- Phonology
- Phonology, Computational
- Phonology, Early Child
- Pidgins
- Polarity
- Policy and Planning, Language
- Politeness in Language
- Polysemy
- Positive Discourse Analysis
- Possessives, Acquisition of
- Pragmatics, Acquisition of
- Pragmatics, Cognitive
- Pragmatics, Computational
- Pragmatics, Cross-Cultural
- Pragmatics, Developmental
- Pragmatics, Experimental
- Pragmatics, Game Theory in
- Pragmatics, Historical
- Pragmatics, Institutional
- Pragmatics, Second Language
- Pragmatics, Teaching
- Prague Linguistic Circle, The
- Presupposition
- Pronouns
- Psycholinguistics
- Quechuan and Aymaran Languages
- Questions
- Reading, Second-Language
- Reciprocals
- Reduplication
- Reflexives and Reflexivity
- Register and Register Variation
- Relevance Theory
- Representation and Processing of Multi-Word Expressions in...
- Salish Languages
- Sapir, Edward
- Saussure, Ferdinand de
- Second Language Acquisition, Anaphora Resolution in
- Semantic Maps
- Semantic Roles
- Semantic-Pragmatic Change
- Semantics, Cognitive
- Sentence Processing in Monolingual and Bilingual Speakers
- Sign Language Linguistics
- Slang
- Sociolinguistics
- Sociolinguistics, Variationist
- Sociopragmatics
- Sonority
- Sound Change
- South American Indian Languages
- Specific Language Impairment
- Speech, Deceptive
- Speech Perception
- Speech Production
- Speech Synthesis
- Suppletion
- Switch-Reference
- Syllables
- Syncretism
- Synonymy
- Syntactic Change
- Syntactic Knowledge, Children’s Acquisition of
- Tense, Aspect, and Mood
- Text Mining
- Tone
- Tone Sandhi
- Topic
- Transcription
- Transitivity and Voice
- Translanguaging
- Translation
- Trubetzkoy, Nikolai
- Tucanoan Languages
- Tupian Languages
- Typology
- Usage-Based Linguistics
- Uto-Aztecan Languages
- Valency Theory
- Verbs, Serial
- Vocabulary, Second Language
- Voice and Voice Quality
- Vowel Harmony
- Whitney, William Dwight
- Word Classes
- Word Formation in Japanese
- Word Recognition, Spoken
- Word Recognition, Visual
- Word Stress
- Writing, Second Language
- Writing Systems
- Yiddish
- Zapotecan Languages