Number, case, gender and agreement

Number

Grammatical number classifies a noun phrase or participant according to distinctions defined by the language. Singular and plural are common, but dual can mark two, and some languages have additional values or restrict number marking to certain nouns or contexts. The Inuktut singular/dual/plural data show how a three-way contrast can appear in forms. Number on a verb may index an argument rather than count events.

Plurality can be expressed by an affix, a separate word, reduplication, tone or no obligatory marker. If a noun lacks a plural token in a corpus, report a gap in attestation, not a claim that the language lacked a plural.

Case and alignment

Case is an inflectional distinction associated with a noun phrase’s syntactic or semantic use. A nominative/accusative system distinguishes a transitive object from a transitive subject and often groups an intransitive subject with the latter. An ergative/absolutive system groups an intransitive subject with a transitive object instead. Other cases may mark recipients, possessors, locations or instruments, but the meaning of a named case is not identical in every language.

A case form may serve several functions, and a syntactic role may be indicated jointly by case, agreement, word order and context. The WALS case-syncretism chapter gives Central Yup’ik “land”: singular absolutive nuna versus relative nunam, but dual and plural forms syncretize the two cases. This shows why one identical pair of cells does not prove that the language lacks the distinction throughout its paradigm.

Gender and agreement

Grammatical gender or noun class is a system in which nouns control distinct agreement forms on other words. Corbett’s WALS chapter uses Russian verb agreement with “magazine”, “book” and “letter” to demonstrate masculine, feminine and neuter classes. The defining evidence lies in the agreeing target, not merely the noun ending or its referent’s biological sex. An inanimate noun can belong to a masculine or feminine class.

Agreement is the covariance of a target’s form with features of a controller. Ask which element controls which feature, whether the agreement occurs within a noun phrase or on the verb, and whether some semantic classes behave exceptionally. In an ancient text, damage to the target can make a gender assignment less secure than a dictionary headword suggests.

Practice

Copy the attested Central Yup’ik cells below. Which case contrast is visible in singular and which cells are syncretic? Explain why filling the dual and plural with distinct hypothetical endings would misrepresent the source.