Feature GB166: Is there productive morphological paucal marking on nouns?

Patrons: Hedvig Skirgård

Description ⇫

Summary

This question concerns a bound grammatical marker of paucal number on nouns (From Latin paucalis ‘few, little’). Paucal is a number value that refers to a non-specified small amount usually between two or more and ten or less. The exact value can depend on what is being counted. The marker should occur with an open set of nouns, not with a restricted set. This feature contrasts with GB320 Is paucal number regularly marked in the noun phrase by a phonologically free element? which focuses on the non-bound marking of paucal number. For more on bound marking, please see this page. Bound marking of number on nouns derived from other word classes (such as adjectives or verbs) does not suffice for a 1.

Number marking is often fused with marking of other categories, such as definiteness/specificity or gender/noun class. It is possible for the number marker to also signal other functions and be coded as 1, as long as these other functions do not interfere with the number distinctions and as long as number marking is productive and regular.

It can be difficult to determine how obligatory markers of dual, trial and paucal number are since they can often be replaced by plural number marking. If the grammar writers describe the marker as denoting grammatical number and there are several examples, this suffices.

Procedure

  1. Consider the section in the grammar that deals with number or nominal morphology.
  2. If the author describes a bound marker of paucal number on the noun that occurs regularly, code 1.
  3. If the only marking of paucal number occurs on nouns derived from other word classes (adjectives, verbs etc.) or on a small subset of nouns, code 0.
  4. If the grammar mentions that paucal number is not marked productively, or that it is marked somewhere else than on the noun, code as 0.
  5. If the grammar does not describe number marking at all and you have a reason to believe that the author may have missed it, code ?.
  6. If the grammar does not describe number, you encounter no examples of number marking, and the grammar is otherwise comprehensive, code 0.

Examples

Sa (ISO 639-3: sax, Glottolog: saaa1241)

Paucal marking is not common, and since a similar enough meaning can often be expressed with a plural marker it is rarely (if ever) described as being obligatory. However, there are instances where markers of paucal number appear on the noun. Sa is an example of a 1 code for this feature: there is a paucal suffix (and a trial suffix).

a. asalsal-ir-pat
whiteman-PL-PAU
‘white men (3 or 4)’ (Elliot 1976: 45)

b. dam-ir-til
yam-PL-TRL
‘yams (3 exactly)’ (Elliot 1976: 45)

c. kuli-r
dog-PL
‘dogs’ (Elliot 1976: 45)

Further reading

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

References

Elliott, George Robert. 1976. A description of Sa, a New Hebrides language. Sydney: Macquarie University. (MA thesis.)

Morphological number marking

Phonologically free number marking

Number agreement within the noun phrase

Other


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0 absent 2090
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Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment