Feature GB041: Are there several nouns (more than three) which are suppletive for number?

Patrons: Hedvig Skirgård

Description

Summary

Suppletion is a process where a lexeme is changed in such a way that the new form does not resemble the previous when it appears in a different position in the paradigm. An example of this is English went and go. In this case, the verb is suppletive for tense. Only so called 'strong suppletion' counts here, 'weak' suppletion is not included.

Only answer 1 if there are more than three examples of strong suppletion. Body parts and kinship terms are a good place to start investigating.

Procedure

  1. Code 1 if there are four or more examples of nouns which have a suppletive forms for number.
  2. If there are 3 or fewer examples, consider whether the author describes these as special exceptions (in which case, code 0) or part of a larger group (in which case, code 1).
  3. If all examples only feature 'weak suppletion', code 0.
  4. If there is little description of number marking of nouns in general, code ?.

Examples

Ket (ISO 639-3: ket, Glottolog: kett1243)

Georg (2007:100) states that there are suppletive forms for number and gives the following examples. The descriptions states that there are more than these three, but only three are given for illustrative purposes. Ket is coded as 1 for this feature.

singular plural English translation
ke?d de?ŋ 'person/human being'
ōks a?q 'tree'
qo?d qɨ́neŋ 'way/road'

Further reading

Corbett, Greville G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Corbett, Greville G. 2009. Suppletion: Typology, markedness, complexity. In Patrick O. Steinkrüger & Manfred Krifka (eds), On Inflection, 25–40. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

References

Georg, Stefan. 2007. A descriptive grammar of Ket: Part I: Introduction, phonology and morphology. Kent, UK: Global Oriental.

Morphological number marking

Phonologically free number marking

Number agreement


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0 absent 1600
1 present 144
? Not known 608
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Values

Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment