Grammatical number

Quick Facts: Who was Grammatical number?

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Grammatical number

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Grammatical number expresses count distinctions (one, two, or more) in language morphology.

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Origins & Early Life

In linguistics, grammatical number is a feature, in many languages, of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other languages present number categories of singular or plural. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements.

Career & Major Achievements

The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see "Grammatical aspect". Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. One widespread distinction, found in English and many other languages, involves a simple two-way contrast between singular and plural number (car/cars, child/children, etc.).

Enduring Legacy & Impact

Discussion of other more elaborate systems of number appears below. Grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement.

Historical Fact-Check Quiz: Grammatical number

True or False: “In many languages, the paucal number represents a precisely countable, small group of items.”

Answer (FALSE ❌): The paucal number represents an inexactly small group of items, meaning it is not precisely countable like the dual or trial number.

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