5 - The expression of number

Summary

It is now time to look at the ways in which number is expressed. This rather basic issue is a surprisingly novel one. Of course, many grammars describe number marking in individual languages but little has been done towards a typology. We shall therefore give an initial typology, one which aims to list the possibilities (claiming that the listed types can exist and no more). The obvious candidates for number expression are all found: special words (§5.1), syntax (§5.2), morphology (§5.3) and lexical means (§5.4). We shall then examine three types of system which are distinctive and which belong here in a discussion of means because they do not give rise to new semantic distinctions. (This is why they were not treated in chapter 2.) These are inverse systems (§5.5), minimal-augmented systems (§5.6) and ‘constructed’ numbers (§5.7). Finally we take up the discussion of the reduced expression of number, considering the form of items which are not (or not fully) within the number system (§5.8).

The main typological point is the importance of comparing like with like. In previous chapters we examined number values and their ranges of availability and compared each of these across languages. Now we turn to the means of expression, and must continue to be clear about when our claims relate to meaning and when to the means of expression.