X-Nico

unusual facts about grammatical number


Data

In one sense, datum is a count noun with the plural datums (see usage in datum article) that can be used with cardinal numbers (e.g. "80 datums"); data (originally a Latin plural) is not used like a normal count noun with cardinal numbers and can be plural with such plural determiners as these and many or as a singular abstract mass noun with a verb in the singular form.


German pronouns

The German personal pronouns must always have the same gender, same number, and same case as their antecedents.

Ghost word

The supposed Homeric Greek word στητη = "woman", which arose thus: In Iliad Book 1 line 6 is the phrase διαστητην ερισαντε = "two = Achilles and Agamemnon stood apart making strife", where later someone not familiar with dual number verb inflections read it as δια στητην ερισαντε = "two making strife because of a στητη", and he guessed that στητη meant the woman Briseis who was the subject of the strife.

Old Saxon grammar

Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and determiners were fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), two grammatical numbers (singular and plural) and three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter).

Storsylen

The first element is stor meaning "big" and the last element is the finite singular form of syl which means "awl".


see also

Old Church Slavonic

Dual as a distinct grammatical number from singular and plural;