This question concerns regular marking of singular number in the noun phrase by a marker that is not bound to the noun, but free-standing. The marker should occur with an open set of nouns, not with a restricted set. This feature contrasts with GB042 Is there a productive overt morphological singular marker on nouns?, which focuses on the bound marking of singular number. (For more on wordhood and bound marking, please see this page.)
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 still 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.
Samoan (ISO 639-3: smo, Glottolog: samo1305)
Number in Samoan is regularly expressed by a free-standing element that fuses specificity and number. It is labeled "article". Samoan is an example of 1-coding for GB316. The articles of Samoan can be illustrated with the word fale ‘house’:
(Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 90)
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| specific | le fale | fale |
| non-specific | se fale | ni fale |
Corbett, Greville G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan reference grammar. Oslo: The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture and Scandinavian University Press.
Morphological number marking
Phonologically free number marking
Number agreement within the noun phrase
Other
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| 0 | absent | 1908 | |
| 1 | present | 105 | |
| ? | Not known | 118 |
| Name | Glottocode | Family | Macroarea | Contributor | Value | Source | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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