The Category of Number of English Nouns

     As a matter of fact, those nouns which have no number opposites are outside the grammatical category of number. But on the analogy of the bulk of English nouns they acquire oblique (or lexicon-grammatical) meanings of number. Therefore singularia tantum are often treated as singulars and pluralia tantum as plurals.

     This is justified both by their forms and by their combinability.

     Cf. This (table, book, milk, love) is…

     These (tables, books, clothes, goods) are…

     When combinability and form contradict each other, combinability is decisive, which accounts for the fact that ‘police’ or ‘cattle’  are regarded as plurals, and ‘measles’, ‘mathematics as singulars.

     The lexicon-grammatical meaning of a class (or of a subclass) of words is, as we know, an abstraction from the lexical meanings of the words of the class, and depends to a certain extent on those lexical meanings. Therefore singularia tantum usually include nouns of certain lexical meanings. They are mostly material, abstract and collective nouns, such as sugar, gold, butter, brilliance, constancy, selfishness, humanity, soldiery, peasantry.

     Yet it is not every material, abstract or collective noun that belongs to the group of singularia tantum (e. g. a plastic, a feeling, a crowd) and, what is more important, not in all of its meanings does a noun belong to this group.

     As we have already seen⁵, variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses of a part of speech. In most of their meanings the words joy and sorrow as abstract nouns are singularia tantum.

     E.g. He has been a good friend both in joy and in sоrгоw. (Horney).

     But when concrete manifestations are meant, these nouns are countable and have plural opposites, e. g. the joys and sorrows of life.

     Likewise, the words copper, tin, hair as material nouns are usually singularia tantum, but when they denote concrete objects, they become countable and get plural opposites: a copper – coppers, a tin – tins, a hair – hairs.

     Similarly, when the nouns wine, steel, salt denote some sort or variety of the substance, they become countable.

     E.g. an expensive wine – expensive wines.

     All such cases are not a peculiarity of the English language alone. They are found in other languages as well. Cf. дерево – деревья and дерево.is a material noun, платье – платья and платье as a collective noun.

     ‘Joy’ and ‘a joy’, ‘beauty’ and ‘a beauty’, ‘copper’ and ‘a copper’, ‘hair’ and ‘a hair’ and many other pairs of this kind are not homonyms, as suggested by some grammarians⁶, but variants of lexemes related by internal conversion.

     If all such cases were regarded as homonyms, the number of homonyms in the English language would be practically limitless. If only some of them were treated as homonyms, that would give rise to uncontrolled subjectivity.

     The group of pluralia tantum is mostly composed of nouns denoting objects consisting of two or more parts, complex phenomena or ceremonies, e. g. tongs, pincers, trousers, nuptials, obsequies. Here also belong some nouns with a distinct collective or material meaning, e.g. clothes, eaves, sweets.

     Since in these words the – s suffix does not function as a grammatical morpheme, it gets lexicalized and develops into an inseparable part of the stem ⁷. This, probably, underlies the fact that such nouns as mathematics, optics, linguistics, mumps, measles are treated as singularia tantum.

     Nouns like police, militia, cattle, poultry are pluralia tantum, judging by their combinability, though not by form ⁸.

     People in the meaning of «народ» is a countable noun. In the meaning of «люди» it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Family in the sense of «a group of people who are related» is a countable noun. In the meaning of «individual members of this group» it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Thus, the lexeme family has two variants:

     Sg.    PL

     1) family   families

     2) –    family

     E. g. Almost every family in the village has sent a man to the army. (Horney).

     Those were the oldest families in Jorkshire. (Black).

     Her family were of a delicate constitution. (Bronte).

     Similar variants are observed in the lexemes committee, government, board, crew, etc.

     Colour in the meaning «red, green, blue, etc». is a countable noun. In the meaning «appearance of reality or truth» (e. g. His torn clothes gave colour to his story that lie had been attacked by robbers. A. Horney.) it has no plural opposite and belongs to the singularia tantum. Colours in the sense of «materials used by painters and artists» has no singular opposite and belongs to the pluralia tantum.

     Thus, the lexeme has three variants:

     Sg.  Pl.

     1) colour colours

     2) colour –

     3) –  colours.

     When grammarians write that the lexical meanings of some plurals differ from those of their singular opposites ⁹, they simply compare different variants of a lexeme.

     Sometimes variants of a lexeme may belong to the same lexico-grammatical subclass and yet have different forms of number opposemes.

     Cf.  brother (son of same parents) – brothers

     brother (fellow member) – brethren

     fish – fish (e.g. I caught five fish yesterday.)

     fish – fishes ('different species', e. g. ocean fishes).

     A collective noun is a word that designates a group of objects or beings regarded as a whole, such as «flock», «team», or «corporation». Although many languages treat collective nouns as singular, in others they may be interpreted as plural. In British English, phrases such as the committee are meeting are common (the so-called agreement in sensu «in meaning», that is, with the meaning of a noun, rather than with its form). The use of this type of construction varies with dialect and level of formality.

     All languages are able to specify the quantity of referents. They may do so by lexical means with words such as English a few, some, one, two, five hundred. However, not every language has a grammatical category of number. Grammatical number is expressed by morphological and/or syntactic means. That is, it is indicated by certain grammatical elements, such as through affixes or number words. Grammatical number may be thought of as the indication of semantic number through grammar.

     Languages that express quantity only by lexical means lack a grammatical category of number. For instance, in Khmer, neither nouns nor verbs carry any grammatical information concerning number: such information can only be conveyed by lexical items such as khlah 'some', pii-bey 'a few', and so on.

     Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. The most widespread distinction, as found in English and many other languages, involves a simple two-way number contrast between singular and plural (car / cars; child / children, etc.). Other more elaborate systems of number are described below.

     The semantic nature of the difference between singular and plural may present some difficulties of interpretation.

     On the surface of semantic relations, the meaning of the singular will be understood as simply "one", as opposed to the meaning of the plural as "many" in the sense of "more than one". This is apparently obvious for such correlations as book — books, lake — lakes and the like. However, alongside of these semantically unequivocal correlations, there exist plurals and singulars that cannot be fully accounted for by the above ready-made approach. This becomes clear when we take for comparison such forms as tear (one drop falling from the eye) and tears (treacles on the cheeks as tokens of grief or joy), potato (one item of the vegetables) and potatoes (food), paper (material) and papers (notes or documents), sky (the vault of heaven) and skies (the same sky taken as a direct or figurative background), etc. As a result of the comparison we conclude that the broader sememic mark of the plural, or "plurality" in the grammatical sense, should be described as the potentially dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent, while the sememic mark of the singular will be understood as the non-dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent, i.e. the presentation of the referent in its indivisible entireness.

     It is sometimes stated that the plural form indiscriminately presents both multiplicity of separate objects ("discrete" plural, e.g. three houses) and multiplicity of units of measure for an indivisible object ("plural of measure", e.g. three hours) [Ilyish, 36 ff.]. However, the difference here lies not in the content of the plural as such, but in the quality of the objects themselves. Actually, the singulars of the respective nouns differ from one another exactly on the same lines as the plurals do {cf. one house —one hour).

     On the other hand, there are semantic varieties of the plural forms that differ from one another in their plural quality as such. Some distinctions of this kind were shown above. Some further distinctions may be seen in a variety of other cases. Here belong, for example, cases where the plural form expresses a definite set of objects {eyes of the face, wheels of the vehicle, etc.), various types of the referent {wines, tees, steels), intensity of the presentation of the idea {years and years, thousands upon thousands), picturesqueness {sands, waters, snows). The extreme point of this semantic scale is marked by the lexicalisation of the plural form, i.e. by its serving as a means of rendering not specificational, but purely notional difference in meaning. Cf. colours as a "flag", attentions as "wooing", pains as "effort", quarters as "abode", etc.

     The scope of the semantic differences of the plural forms might pose before the observer a question whether the category of number is a variable grammatical category at all.

     The answer to the question, though, doesn't leave space or any uncertainty: the category of number is one of the regular variable categories in the grammatical system of he English language. The variability of the category is simply given in its form, i.e. in the forms of the bulk of English nouns which do distinguish it by means of the described binary paradigm. As for the differences in meaning, these arise from the interaction between the underlying oppositional sememic marks of the category and the more concrete lexical differences in the semantics of individual words.

     The most general quantitative characteristics of individual words constitute the lexico-grammatical base for dividing the nounal vocabulary as a whole into countable nouns and uncountable nouns. The constant categorial feature "quantitative structure" (see Ch. V, §3) is directly connected with the variable feature "number", since uncountable nouns are treated grammatically as either singular or plural. Namely, the singular uncountable nouns are modified by the non-discrete quantifiers much or little, and they take the finite verb in the singular, while the plural uncountable nouns take the finite verb in the plural.

     The two subclasses of uncountable nouns are usually referred to, respectively, as singularia tantum (only singular) and pluralia tantum (only plural). In terms of oppositions we may say that in the formation of the two subclasses of uncountable nouns the number opposition is "constantly" (lexically) reduced either to the weak member (singularia tantum) or to the strong member (pluralia tantum).

     Since the grammatical form of the uncountable nouns of the singularia tantum subclass is not excluded from the category of number, it stands to reason to speak of it as the "absolute" singular, as different from the "correlative" or "common" singular of the countable nouns. The absolute singular excludes the use of the modifying numeral one, as well as the indefinite article.

     The absolute singular is characteristic of the names of abstract notions {peace, love, joy, courage, friendship, etc.), the names of the branches of professional activity {chemistry, architecture, mathematics, linguistics, etc.), the names of mass-materials {water, snow, steel, hair, etc.), the names of collective inanimate objects {foliage, fruit, furniture, machinery, etc.). Some of these words can be used in the form of the common singular with the common plural counterpart, but in this case they come to mean either different sorts of materials, or separate concrete manifestations of the qualities denoted by abstract nouns, or concrete objects exhibiting the respective qualities. Cf.:

     Joy is absolutely necessary for normal human life.— It was a joy to see her among us. Helmets for motor-cycling are nowadays made of plastics instead of steel.— Using different modifications of the described method, super-strong steels are produced for various purposes.

     The lexicalising effect of the correlative number forms (both singular and plural) in such cases is evident, since the categorial component of the referential meaning in each of them is changed from uncountability to countability. Thus, the oppositional reduction is here nullified in a peculiarly lexicalising way, and the full oppositional force of the category of number is rehabilitated.

     Common number with uncountable singular nouns can also be expressed by means of combining them with words showing discreteness, such as bit, piece, item, sort. Cf.:

     The last two items of news were quite sensational. Now I'd like to add one more bit of information. You might as well dispense with one or two pieces of furniture in the hall.

     This kind of rendering the grammatical meaning of common number with uncountable nouns is, in due situational conditions, so regular that it can be regarded as special suppletivity in the categorial system of number (see Ch. III, §4).

     On the other hand, the absolute singular, by way of functional oppositional reduction, can be used with countable nouns. In such cases the nouns are taken to express either the corresponding abstract ideas, or else the meaning of some mass-material correlated with its countable referent. Cf.:

     Waltz is a lovely dance. There was dead desert all around them. The refugees needed shelter. Have we got chicken for the second course?

     Under this heading (namely, the first of the above two subpoints) comes also the generic use of the singular. Cf.:

     Man's immortality lies in his deeds. Wild elephant in the Jungle can be very dangerous.

     In the sphere of the plural, likewise, we must recognise the common plural form as the regular feature of countability, and the absolute plural form peculiar to the uncountable subclass of pluralia tantum nouns. The absolute plural, as different from the common plural, cannot directly combine with numerals, and only occasionally does it combine with discrete quantifiers (many, few, etc.).

     The absolute plural is characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denote objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors, tongs, spectacles, etc.), the nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning, i.e. rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and abstract (supplies, outskirts, clothes, parings; tidings, earnings, contents, politics; police, cattle, poultry, etc.), the nouns denoting some diseases as well as some abnormal states of the body and mind (measles, rickets, mumps, creeps, hysterics, etc.). As is seen from the examples, from the point of view of number as such, the absolute plural forms can be divided into set absolute plural (objects of two halves) and non-set absolute plural (the rest).

     The set plural can also be distinguished among the common plural forms, namely, with nouns denoting fixed sets of objects, such as eyes of the face, legs of the body, legs of the table, wheels of the vehicle, funnels of the steamboat, windows of the room, etc.

     The necessity of expressing definite numbers in cases of uncountable pluralia tantum nouns, as well as in cases of countable nouns denoting objects in fixed sets, has brought about different suppletive combinations specific to the plural form of the noun, which exist alongside of the suppletive combinations specific to the singular form of the noun shown above. Here belong collocations with such words as pair, set, group, bunch and some others. Cf.: a pair of pincers; three pairs of bathing trunks; a few groups of police; two sets of dice; several cases of measles; etc.

     The absolute plural, by way of functional oppositional reduction, can be represented in countable nouns having the form of the singular, in uncountable nouns having the form of the plural, and also in countable nouns having the form of the plural.

     The first type of reduction, consisting in the use of the absolute plural with countable nouns in the singular form, concerns collective nouns, which are thereby changed into "nouns of multitude". Cf.:

     The family were gathered round the table. The government are unanimous in disapproving the move of the opposition.

     This form of the absolute plural may be called "multitude plural".

     The second type of the described oppositional reduction, consisting in the use of the absolute plural with uncountable nouns in the plural form, concerns cases of stylistic marking of nouns. Thus, the oppositional reduction results in expressive transposition. Cf.: the sands of the desert; the snows of the Arctic; the waters of the ocean; the fruits of the toil; etc,

     This variety of the absolute plural may be called "descriptive uncountable plural".

     The third type of oppositional reduction concerns common countable nouns used in repetition groups. The acquired implication is indefinitely large quantity intensely presented. The nouns in repetition groups may themselves be used either in the plural ("featured" form) or in the singular ("unfeatured" form). Cf.:

     There were trees and trees all around us. I lit cigarette after cigarette.

     This variety of the absolute plural may be called "repetition plural". It can be considered as a peculiar analytical form in the marginal sphere of the category of number.

     As already mentioned, plural and singular nouns stand in contrast as diametrically opposite. Instances are not few, however, when their opposition comes to be neutralised. And this is to say that there are cases when the numeric differentiation appears to be of no importance at all. Here belong many collective abstract and material nouns. If, for instance, we look at the meaning of collective nouns, we cannot fail to see that they denote at the same time a plurality and a unit. They may be said to be doubly countables and thus from a logical point of view form the exact contrast to mass nouns: they are, in fact, at the same time singular and plural, while mass words are logically neither. The double-sidedness of collective nouns weakens the opposition and leads to the development of either Pluralia tantum, as in: weeds (in a garden), ashes, embers, etc., or Singularia tantum, as in: wildfowl, clergy, foliage, etc.