Plural

The plural (Latin [ numerus ] pluralistic, majority ', derived from plures, more '; abbreviation Pl ) is the grammatical term for plural. Compared with the plural, the singular, the singular. In some languages ​​, there are other Zählformen, see numerus.

• 2.1 Plural in Indo-European languages
• 2.2 Plural in other language families
• 2.3 Plural in planned languages

The plural in German

In German we have the plural in different parts of speech, for example, the verb, the noun ( name word or noun ), the item (gender word) and pronoun ( pronoun ).

In the German language congruent related phrases or individual components within a phrase in terms of the number together:

• You drive. ( Subject and predicate )
• I drive across the Great Lakes. (Object, fed listening Article )
• We drive through the woods. ( Combination of both )
• Mom and Dad go. ( If the noun phrase of several standing in the singular nouns and the plural is marked on the verb. )
• The student or the teacher entered the classroom. ( For mixed Numbers of the subject on the verb, the plural is applied. )

It would be wrong, for example, "You ride across the lake. " Because the verb here is in a different number than the corresponding subject. It is true, for example, " You drive over the lake. ".

Plural form of the article

The definite article indicating the gender word in the singular ( the, the, the ), the unit to form the plural. Therefore a Numerusunterschied For masculine and Neutra in their particular use already by the article form as given.

The indefinite article ( a ) usually shows in the German no plural form: a chair - chairs. Only for special highlighting the uncertainty, the shape of some used: a chair - some chairs.

Plural formation of nouns

For plural formation in German language following agents are used:

The following table gives an overview of the plural form of Erbwörtern and loanwords:

As can be seen, the types of plural formation are varied and arbitrary; neither the genus nor the phonetic form of the noun clear rules are predictable. Nevertheless, there are some relationships between gender and plural form of a noun (see following paragraph).

Relationship between gender and plural

Jacob Grimm noted that the formation of the plural in general the genus of the word depends and usually

• The masculine ending- e
• Neutra the ending he -
• Feminines the ending - (e ) n

Receive. The distribution of the different allomorphs but morphologically conditioned, that is, it can be given no general rule that one could infer from the appearance of the singular to the plural. Only the choice between -n and- s is phonetically conditioned.

Double forms in the plural formation

Sometimes there are different plural forms of a word, for example,

• The word - the words or the words

Here there is a difference in meaning in the High German language: "The words " refer to the word as a statement, while " the words" relate more to the grammatical meaning of " word".

• The park - the park or parks (CH)
• The tunnel - the tunnel (see zero plural) and the tunnel ( see s - plural, of Engl tunnel. )
• Air balloon - the air balloons and the balloons

The e- plural

This plural is typical of the German language, albeit unequally distributed across the generations. Even though there are over 200 words from the masculine Erbwortschatz which form a s - plural, but only about 60 neuters and feminines 40. While the latter always show umlaut, where this is possible, the umlaut occurs in masculines and neuters in irregular.

Within the Indo-European and even of the Germanic languages ​​of the e- plural is rather rare; However, it also occurs in Danish on (probably conditioned by German influence ).

• Feminines without umlaut: all feminines in - nis ( plural Auslautverdoppelung: - directories)
• Feminine nouns with umlaut: fear, ax, bank, bride, Rutting, chest, fist - aligned (eg escape ), fruit, goose, grave, hand, skin, divide ( also n- plural), power, cow, future, art, Louse, air, lust, power, maid, mouse, night, seam ( also n- plural), emergency, nut, sow ( also n- plural), string, city, addiction, wall, sausage, guild.

Some feminines are already in vogue to switch from e - to n- plural, as the simplex escape ( escapes, but still: excuses ) have already done, and also the words sowing or ravine (* sowed, gorges > seeds, canyons).

The plural n-

Especially in the German feminines form a plural in-n; while they end in the singular typically in-e, -el or -er:

• The Pea - peas
• The conductor - the conductors
• The particles - the particles

Therefore feminines in-er or -el behave differently than uniform masculine or Neutra, because the plural with them only by the ending and not, as in those who may be expressed by the change of the article.

In addition, some masculine form an n - plural; these are mainly to animate nouns ending in -e, for example, the boy, the boy, the raven, the lion, the Greek, the Swede; and also by a few nouns in-er, about the farmer who Bayer, the cousins.

Another group of primarily masculine words with plural in-n are words of Latin or Greek origin with Endbetonung or stress on the penultimate syllable, the people call, for example:

• On -et: the poet, the prophet, the prole
• On - or: the doctor, the judge, the professor

Finally, there is a group of neutral loanwords, which are also mostly from Latin or Greek, and show a endbetonte stem form in the singular; these take on a plural on - ien, for example:

• The fossil - the fossils (next: The Fossil )
• The evidence - the evidence
• The utensil - the utensils

As well as the only inherited word:

• The jewel - the jewels

Most of these words have repelled her Singularmorph - order; some, however, retain this suffix and continue to show so Suffixwechsel in Numerusbildung:

• The museum - the museums
• The sanatorium - the sanatoriums

See also the subsection for plural of foreign words.

The r- plural

The plural in-r übersprünglich concerns only a small class of neutralization (ie, terms for animal boy) and was transferred from there, starting by analogy to other words. Today, about a dozen masculine and several dozen Neutra inflect according to this pattern, which was productive only in Middle High German; always occurs, where possible, an umlaut.

• Masculine without umlaut: spirit, body, ski / ski.
• Masculine nouns with umlaut: God, man, mouth, rim, throat, Bush, date (eg wealth ), forest, worm.
• Neutra without umlaut: beast, picture, board, egg, box, money, mood, gender, face, ghost, child, dress, Lid, song, nest, Regiment, beef, shield, sword, creature.
• Neutra with Umlaut:, carrion, office, bathroom, sheet, book, umbrella, village, professional, salary, chamber, taste, garment, glass, grave, Grass, Good, home, house, wood, horn, chicken, dump, veal grain, herb, lamb, country meal (also e - plural), times (also e - plural, eg monument), foot, bike, Ross ( also e - plural), castle, hospital, Valley, strand, cloth, people, word.

Feminine r plurals are not used in standard German; in Austrian German, however, exists for " tomato" a singular the plural paradise with associated the tomatoes. However, the tomato is also frequently used as a singular.

The -s plural

Plurals in-s are not really typical and historically occupied relatively late for the German language; However, they also exist in other West Germanic languages ​​, as in the Netherlands and especially in English.

Today, the s- ending part of the standard of the German plural formation. It is always used when no other option is available ( among other things, if the word can not be classified by analogy with other plurals ), for example, acronyms and many foreign words, especially those of English or French origin:

• CD - CDs
• The GmbH - the limited liability companies
• The battery - the batteries
• The cousin - the cousins
• The job - the job
• The mobile phone - cell phones

The -s plural is also used for the identification of groups of the same family name; you see:

• The miller ( several members of the Miller family )

But:

• The miller - the miller (occupation)

The zero plural

Endingless and the same shape as the singular and the plural are many masculines and neuters in -el ,-en or -er:

• The belt - the belt
• The cake - the cake
• The truck - the truck (in the sense of ' truck ')
• Vice - the vice (in the sense of ' vice ')
• The ward - the ward
• The creatures - the creatures

Zero plural also show neuters in -e; these are mostly to collective nouns with the prefix ge - such as buildings, structures, mountains and also to get the word cheese.

A special case are some Latin words such as case and status. Singular and plural are the same here, although written ( the status - the status ), but with different spoken ending: singular with short u, plural with a long and

The (pure ) umlaut plural

Two-syllable masculine nouns in -el ,-en, or - he often distinguish the singular from the plural form by umlaut of the stem vowel:

• The apple - apples
• The soil - the soil
• The father - the fathers

The cart / weighing: Both with and without umlaut, the plural of about car appears.

The combined umlaut plural

Umlaut, however, also occurs with the formation of the plural of nouns, which make use of a Pluralmorphs; typically it involves masculine plural or with e- Neutra with r- plural; for monosyllabic feminines with e- umlaut plural is obligatory. Other feminine nouns do not show affection in the plural, except in compound words instead (plural: entities).

In conjunction with the plural - n occurs, apart from this case, no umlaut on; the same applies without exception to the s- plural.

Special foreign word plurals

For words from technical language it is sometimes unusual plural forms, which are due to the foreign origin of these words:

• The visa - the visa
• The Sphinx - the sphinxes or the Sphinxes
• Pharaoh - the Pharaohs
• The embryo - the embryos or embryos
• The kibbutz - the kibbutzim or the kibbutzim
• Seraph - Seraphim or the seraphs
• The code - the codes or the codices
• Index - the index or the indices

Original plurals of foreign words

In foreign words in German also plurals are formed which (but not necessarily in the debate) are based in the morphology of the plural form of the language of origin of the word in question:

• The espresso - the espresso ( original plural) next to the espresso ( Germanized plural)
• The pizza - the pizza ( original plural) in addition to the pizzas and the pizzas (both eingedeutschte plurals )
• The case - the case ( plural Taught by Latin model: singular with short, plural with a long u)
• The Tenuis - the Tenues

Unusual and marked plural forms

These words form a plural in German by inserting a dental Loud -d - or-t - between stem and plural:

• The building - buildings (next to the burrows )
• The Time - the Zeitläufte
• The injustice - the rigors

In a prompt sentence sometimes an extra -s is colloquially added to the already marked plural:

• Parents - Kinders
• Wife - Weibers
• As Pluraletantum: Leuts, also written Leutz

About A parallel marker shows the equivalent of German "child" in the Netherlands ( het kind - de kids ) and in English ( child - children).

The latter result is after the elderly, the German equivalent form plural childer was not clear with the plural ending -er; Therefore, the new plural ending -en was added, which was still productive (see the relic form ox - oxen ). Sometimes you can hear already the ( grammatically incorrect ) form childrens, in which a third ending, namely the current standard ending- s is still attached.

Plural of compound words

For composites, ie, compound nouns, in the German, the rule is that only that hindlimb forms a plural:

• The apple tree - the apple trees (not: * the apples trees)
• The sausage roll - the sausage rolls (not: * the sausages rolls )
• The dumplings - the dumplings (but you compare Valentine 's joke plural rolls dumplings )

This does not apply in some German dialects, such as in Bavarian, where sometimes the antecedent can form a plural:

• Åpfibàm - Äpfibàm (next Opfibàma and Äpfibàma )

Plural restrictions

Singularia tantum

Some words have no plural, one talks of singularia tantum.

• Universe, Chaos, sleep or bromine (or any other chemical elements )

Pluralia tantum

A noun that is common only in the plural, called tantum plurals.

• Holiday, costs

In some existing only in the plural the singular words disappeared in the High German language, but may still be present in dialects.

• Debris (singular was strand )

If you can transform this form with another suffix in a singular, one speaks of a singulative ( in German rare).

• Special feature: the merchant - the merchants or the Colonel - the Supreme (obsolete: Colonel - Colonel )

Shift in meaning

Some words in the plural comes a shift in meaning to the expression:

• The water (name of an indefinite amount of water )
• The water (different kinds of water, rivers, lakes, etc.)
• The waters (different kinds of drinking water )

Previously, the concept of internal plural was used to describe a word that occurs in purely formal terms in the singular, but semantically indicates a plural. Usually, one undetermined amount is meant (plural of the indefinite quantity), which has no grammatical plural. Today's traditional name is collective noun:

• The road - the branches - the branches
• The shrub - the bushes - the bushes
• The worm - worms - the worms

Similar shapes are formed but also of verbs: noise - noise, brew - brew.

Plural adjectives

In the attributive adjective ( adjective ) occurs in the plural About accordance with the corresponding noun and declined according to:

• The red chairs. ( Adjective and noun in the nominative and accusative plural neuter, see also KNG - congruence )

Not, however, the predicative adjective:

• The chairs are red.

In this case, the noun may be omitted if it is clear from the context:

• Where are the chairs? The yellow are at the door.

Plural of personal pronouns

When personal pronouns have singular and plural different names. The Deklinationsformen are irregular.

• I → we
• You → you
• He, she, it, they →

The plural in other languages

Many of the world's languages ​​have a morphological Numerusunterscheidung and therefore know the category plural. However, there are languages, such as Chinese, do not know the category number, and which therefore also have no plural. Expression of plurality and is then independent measure words. From the language of the Pirahã is said that it has no way to distinguish the plural.

Plural in Indo-European languages

Most Indo-European languages ​​form plurals usually by inflectional morphology operations, primarily through suffixation. A typical suffix, for example, for the Western Romance languages ​​; you see, for example, the respective word for " tongue " in the following languages ​​:

• French: langue - langues
• Catalan: llengua - llengües
• Spanish: lengua - lenguas
• Portuguese: língua - Línguas
• Romansh: lingua - linguas
• Sardinian: limba - LIMBAS

Unlike the East Romance tongues behavior; here is a Suffixwechsel, as well as in Latin:

• Latin: lingua - linguae
• Italian: lingua - lingue
• Romanian: limba - limbic

The Slavic languages ​​have a similar Suffixwechsel, at least for feminine and neutral nouns; you compare the word for "head":

• Bulgarian: glava - glavi (also applies to Macedonian )
• Slovenian: glava - Glave (also applies to Serbo-Croat )
• Slovak: hlava - hlavy (also valid for Czech)
• Polish: głowa - głowy (also applies to Lower )
• Upper Sorbian: hłowa - hłowy
• Russian: Golova - golovy (also applies to Ukrainian)

In the Germanic languages ​​the other hand, other suffixes have been established as the plural marker, which are comparable with the German. Thus, in the Netherlands, in the Low German and Frisian on the plural - (e ) n very common in the Scandinavian languages ​​, however, that on - (e) r. The English plural in - (e) s is a further development of this Scandinavian plural. Compare this to the word for " arm ":

• Dutch: poor - poor
• Frisian: earm - earmen
• Swedish: arm - armar
• Norwegian: poor - poor
• English: arm - arms

A variety of possibilities of plural formation is to be found except in German especially in Albania and in the Celtic languages. The Kymrische about even shows the specificity of a so-called subtractive plural, in which a possibly existing singular suffix is deleted:

• Mochyn "Pig" - moch
• Pysen " pea" - pys
• Psygodyn "fish" - pysgod
• Blodyn "Flower" - Blodau

But also a variety of umlaut plurals are occupied in the Cymric:

• Arth "bear" - eirth
• Carreg "stone" - Cerrig
• Troed "foot" - Traed

Or a combination of both (repayment of Singularsuffixes and the consequent elimination of the umlaut ):

• Plentyn "child" - plans
• Aderyn " bird" - adar

Similarly complex shapes umlaut shows otherwise even the Icelandic:

• Fjörður "fjord" - firðir
• Mörður " Marder " - merðir
• Bróður "brother" - bræður

Plural in other language families

Also in other language families is the plural form instead of by means of suffixation; we take, for example, the plural of " tooth":

• Turkish: diş - Disley ( suffix -lar/-ler )
• Hungarian: fog - fogak ( suffix -ak/-ok/-ek/-ök )

The distribution of the suffixes is carried out in two languages ​​largely on the principles of vowel harmony.

In Arabic, internal and external plurals are distinguished. External plurals are formed by suffixation, internal restructuring by the word base:

• External plural: معلم / mu ʿ Allim "teacher" - معلمون / mu ʿ allimūn ( suffix -ūn/āt )
• Internal plural: قلم / qalam ' "pen" ' - أقلام / aqlām (base qlm )

In Malayo -Polynesian languages ​​the plural formation is characteristic by reduplication.

Plural in planned languages

In languages ​​such as Esperanto plan forming the plural often by a general principle, such as appending a -j to the noun: domo "House" - domoj. Deviating or irregular plural forms are not found.

Distinction of inclusive and exclusive plural

In some languages ​​(eg the Dravidian languages ​​, the Tupi -Guarani languages ​​and the Algonquian languages ​​is the category plural differentiated semantically fine-grained than about the Germans: There is a plural morpheme, which is used when the speaker and his group but not the audience is meant ( exclusively ) and a plural morpheme, which is used when the speaker, his group and the audience is meant to see inclusive and exclusive we.

Special features of the plural

There are some cases the use of the plural, which are characterized in that it is only a single person is meant, but nevertheless the plural is used. For these cases, the following distinctions and terms have become naturalized in linguistics:

• Pluralis auctoris ( = Author plural: Here the author speaks of a text in the "we" form to include the reader more; typical example, such as the introduction of a scientific paper: "We will in this work with the special problems. deal .. ".
• Pluralis benevolentiae (also: Pluralis sanitatis or nurses plural): In this case, the "we" form a person entrusted with caring responsibilities Person is (doctor, nursing staff, parents ... ) to the person addressed, care need to indicate his sympathy; typical example: "How are we today? "
• Pluralis majestatis (also: Pluralis maiestatis ): It involves the use of the "we" form by persons with sovereign rights, to indicate that they have a special, newly sovereign position; typical example: "We, by the grace of God ... have rested, ..."
• Pluralis modestiae ( = plural of modesty; mirrors the " pluralism Auctoris ").
• In addition to other forms of politeness, the plural is used to express respect or reverence, or even distance to the addressee in many languages ​​in the salutation. In English, the original plural salutation you the singular thou has even completely replaced.