In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two", or "three or more"). In many languages including English, the number categories are singular and plural. Some languages also have a dual number or other arrangements.
The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the referents of the marked noun or pronoun.
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".
Read more about Grammatical Number: Overview, Geographical Distribution, Formal Expression of Number, Semantic Vs. Grammatical Number, Auxiliary Languages
Famous quotes containing the words grammatical and/or number:
“Evil is simply
a grammatical error:
a failure to leap
the precipice
between “he”
and “I.””
—Linda Pastan (b. 1932)
“Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is not as efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain’s strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.”
—Jeremy Campbell (b. 1931)