Dual (grammatical number)
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Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities (object, people) identified by the noun or pronoun. Verbs can also have dual agreement forms in these languages.
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[edit] Comparative characteristics
Most, but not all, languages make a distinction between singular and plural: English, for example, distinguishes between 'man' and 'men', or 'house' and 'houses'. In some languages, in addition to such singular and plural forms there is also a dual form, which is used when exactly two people or things are meant. If English had a dual (let's imagine it involved adding -a to the singular form, and to the verb stem), we might have the following paradigm: (sing.) one bird sings, (dual) two birda singa, (plur.) three birds sing. In many languages with dual forms, use of the dual is mandatory, and the plural is used only for groups greater than two. In some languages, however (for example, many modern Arabic dialects, including Egyptian Arabic), use of the dual is optional. In other languages (for example, Hebrew), the dual exists only for a few measure words and for words that naturally come in pairs (such as eyes). In Slovenian, strangely, the dual is used for most nouns, but not for nouns that come in natural pairs (like socks or eyes); the plural is used instead.
Although relatively few languages have the dual number and most have no number or only singular and plural, using different words for groups of two and groups greater than two is not uncommon. English has words distinguishing dual vs. plural number, including: both/all, between/among, latter/last, either/any, and neither/none. Japanese, which today has no grammatical number, also has words dochira (which of the two) and dore (which of the three or more).
[edit] Use in modern languages
Among living languages, modern standard Arabic has a mandatory dual number, marked on nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. (First-person dual forms, however, do not exist; compare this to the lack of third-person dual forms in the old Germanic languages.) Many of the spoken Arabic dialects have a dual marking for nouns (only), but its use is not mandatory. Hebrew, a related Semitic language, also has some forms of dual, largely for measurements of time, parts of the body and things that come in pairs, such as שבועיים /ʃvua'jim/ (two weeks), אופניים /Ofɐna'jim/ (bicycles), עיניים /ʕeɪna'jim/ (eyes), שיניים /ʃina'jim/ (teeth, even all 32), מכנסיים /Mɪxnasa'jim/ (pants), שדיים /ʃada'jim/ (breasts), and משקפיים /miʃqafa'jim/ (eyeglasses). Likewise, Akkadian had a dual number, though its use was confined to standard phrases like "two hands", "two eyes", and "two arms".
The Inuktitut language uses dual forms, the related Greenlandic language, however, does not.
Austronesian languages, particularly Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Niuean and Tongan, possess a dual number for pronouns but not for nouns (indeed, they tend not to mark nouns for number at all). Other Austronesian languages, particularly those spoken in the Philippines, have a dual first-person pronoun; these languages include Ilokano (data), Tausug (kita), and Kapampangan (ikata). These forms mean we, but specifically you and I. This form once existed in Tagalog but has largely disappeared, save for certain rural dialects, since the middle of the 20th century.
The dual was a standard feature of the Proto-Uralic language, and lives on in Sami languages and Samoyedic languages, while other branches like Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian have lost it. Sami also features dual pronouns, expressing the concept of "we two here" as contrasted to "we". Nenets, a Samoyedic language, features a complete set of dual possessive suffixes for two systems, the number of possessor and the number of possessed objects (for example, "two houses of us two" expressed in one word).
The dual form is also used in several modern Indo-European languages, such as Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian and Sorbian (see below for details). The dual was a common feature of all early Slavic languages at the beginning of the second millennium.
[edit] Dual form in Indo-European languages
From comparisons of existing and recorded languages, linguists have concluded that the Proto-Indo-European language had dual forms. This use was preserved in the earliest records of Indo-European languages. This is best represented in Sanskrit, with a mandatory dual number for all inflected categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. The Ancient Greek language used in the Homeric texts, the Iliad and Odyssey, likewise had dual forms for all inflected categories, although their use was only sporadic, owing as much to artistic prerogatives as dictional and metrical requirements within the hexameter meter. In the classical dialects, the dual tended to disappear but was continued in the Attic dialect of Athens through the fifth century B.C, again sporadically according the author's taste and certain stock conventions.
Common Slavic (the ancestor of the Slavic languages) had dual forms, as did Old Irish and Avestan. Sanskrit and Common Slavic are alike in showing only three distinct dual forms for nouns: nominative-accusative-vocative, dative-ablative-instrumental, and genitive-locative. Ancient Greek had only two forms, and Old Irish only one. Avestan has a genitive dual separate from the locative, but this may not go back to Proto-Indo-European.
The dual form was also present in the early Germanic languages. Gothic had first- and second-person dual marking on verbs and pronouns (e.g., wit "we two" vs. weis "we, more than two"). Old English, Old Norse and other old Germanic languages had dual marking only on first- and second-person pronouns. The dual has disappeared from all modern Germanic languages—although only quite recently in North Frisian[1]. Interestingly, the old dual pronouns have become the standard plural pronouns in Austro-Bavarian: e.g., nominative ös, accusative enk "you (plur., orig. dual). The development is observed in Icelandic pronoun system. Otherwise the last vestige of the dual in the Scandinavian languages is the pronoun begge ("both"): One must use begge to ("the (both) two") and alle tre ("the all three"), while *alle to ("the all two") is ungrammatical.[citation needed]
Early Celtic languages show dual forms, and in modern Scottish Gaelic dual forms of nouns are required following the numeral dà ("two"). However, when no numeral is present the plural form is used. In the case of masculine nouns, the dual form is identical to that of the singular, however in conservative usage some feminine nouns have a distinct dual form. Example: with a masculine noun - dà chù "two dogs" (singular cù) vs. trì coin "three dogs"; with a feminine noun - dà làimh "two hands" (singular làmh) vs. trì làmhan "three hands". Brythonic languages (Breton language, Welsh language, Cornish language) still have it.
Among the Baltic languages, the dual form existed but is now obsolete in standard Lithuanian, being used in poetic contexts and some dialects.[citation needed] Examples from Lithuanian: (sing.) vyras, mergina ("man", "girl") – (dual) vyru, mergini – (plur.) vyrai, merginos; einu ("I go"), einava ("we two go"), einame ("we, more than two, go").
[edit] Dual form in Slavic languages
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Common Slavic had a complete singular-dual-plural number system, although the dual paradigms showed considerable syncretism: Verbs had the same form in the 2nd and 3rd person dual, and as mentioned above, dual nouns had only three distinct forms to express seven different cases.[2] In the modern Slavic languages, only Slovene and Sorbian have preserved dual number. In the remaining languages, the dual has completely disappeared in the verbal system, but remnants of the old dual can be found in a few nominal paradigms (particularly in the plural forms of nouns referring to paired body parts: eyes, ears, hands, feet, etc.), in fixed expressions, and in certain grammatical structures involving numerals.[3]
[edit] 2, 3, 4
The syntax of the Slavic languages is characterized by complex rules for combining numerals and nouns. The numeral "one" naturally combines with a singular noun, and the numerals "five" and higher combine consistently with plural nouns, but "two", "three", and "four" have always had a special status. In Common Slavic, "two" combined with dual forms, while "three" and "four" combined sometimes with singular and sometimes with plural forms, depending on the syntactic context.
The loss of the Common Slavic dual in most of the modern languages meant that (i) the syntactic behavior of "three" and "four" spread to phrases involving "two" in some situations, and (ii) the behavior of "two" spread to "three" and "four" in other situations. As a result, in all modern Slavic languages (except for Slovene and Sorbian), the numerals "two", "three", and "four" have identical complex behavior, distinct from "one", and in most cases distinct from the numerals "five" and above.
The following table gives the form of the noun "wolf" that would be used in a nominative case (subject) noun phrase, with and without a numeral:
| singular | plural (no numeral) | 2-3-4 + noun | 5 or more + noun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polish | wilk (nom. sing.) | wilki (nom. plur.) | wilki (nom. plur.) | wilków (gen. plur.) |
| Russian | волк (nom. sing.) | волки (nom. plur.) | волкa (gen. sing.) | волков (gen. plur.) |
| Serbo-Croatian | vuk (nom. sing.) | vukovi (nom. plur.) | vuka (gen. sing.) | vukova (gen. plur.) |
| ex. contexts | "one wolf, my wolf" | "those wolves, my wolves" | "two wolves, four wolves" | "five wolves, ten wolves" |
[edit] Slovene
The Slovene language is the only major Slavic language that retains full grammatical use of the dual, including distinct dual forms for both nouns and verbs. The dual declension merges with the plural in certain nominal cases (e.g., genitive). Note that dual number is compatible with use of the pronoun oba(dva) or obe(dve) ("both").
Nominative case of noun "wolf", with and without numerals:
| singular | plural (no numeral) | 2 + noun | 3-4 + noun | 5 or more + noun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slovene | volk (nom. sing.) | volkovi (nom. plur.) | volkova (nom. dual) | volkovi (nom. plur.) | volkov (gen. plur.) |
| ex. contexts | "one wolf" | "those wolves" | "two wolves" | "three wolves" | "ten wolves" |
The dual is recognised by many Slovene speakers as one of the most distinctive features of the language and a mark of recognition, and is often mentioned in tourist brochures.
[edit] Czech
Standard Czech also has a few remnants of the dual: certain body parts in instrumental and genitive (and the modifying adjectives) require the dual, for example, se svýma očima (instrumental dual: "with one's own eyes") and u nohou (genitive dual: "at the feet"). However, it has lost its numerical meaning: it is used for these body parts regardless of their number (skladba pro čtyři ruce "composition for four hands") and the plural is used for figurative meanings (hrnec s dvěma uchy "pot with two ears (=handles)"). Colloquial Czech substitutes the instrumental dual for the instrumental plural. Thus, while s kamarády "with friends" would be grammatically correct, this, in colloquial Czech, is rendered s kamarádama, which reflects the form of the dual. In old Czech, the dual was more extensively used, and included such things as pronouns (onĕ - "they" when referring to two females).
Remnant of the Common Slavic dual, the pronoun "oba" (us two, those two, those two things) and the cardinal number "dva" (two) are declined whereas every other number bigger than "two" is invariable :
| case / gender | masculine | feminine | neutral |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative, accusative | oba ; dva | obě ; dvě | obě ; dvě |
| genitive, locative | obou ; dvou | obou ; dvou | obou ; dvou |
| dative, instrumental | oběma ; dvěma | oběma ; dvěma | oběma ; dvěma |
[edit] Polish
In Polish there is only singular and plural. But there used to be a dual, which (like in nearly all Slavic languages) has become extinct. Traces can still be seen in today's Polish, though rarely, for example, with body parts and some objects that come in pairs like "two hands", "two eyes", "two ears" (but not "two legs") — both the plural and the "fossilised" dual form for them is correct:
- hands: nominative ręce (dual), genitive rąk (plural), instrumental rękami (plural), rękoma (dual)
- eyes: nominative oczy (dual), genitive oczu (dual), instrumental oczami (plural), oczyma (dual)
- ears: nominative uszy (dual), genitive uszu (dual), instrumental uszami (plural)
For example, w ręce ("in one hand"), w ręku ("in both hands"), w rękach ("in the hands", for example, of enemies, that is, in many hands), which derives from ręka ("Hand"), dwie ręce ("two hands"), trzy ręki (archaic) ("three hands"). This is often seen in sayings and in the work of Polish writer Adam Mickiewicz, in the 19th century.
Traces of the dual remain also in numerals like 20 and 200:
- dziesięć - dzieścia - dzieści (ten):
- 10 = dziesięć
- 20 = dwadzieścia
- 30 = trzydzieści
- 40 = czterdzieści
- sto - ście - sta (hundred):
- 100 = sto
- 200 = dwieście
- 300 = trzysta
- 400 = czterysta
[edit] Ukrainian
Ukrainian dialects (e.g., of the Vinnytsya region) have preserved the dual in feminine nouns: кімната - дві кімнаті - шість кімнат (a room - two rooms - six rooms); рука - дві руці - сім рук (a hand - two hands - seven hands) and in neutral nouns: відро - дві відрі - десять відер (a bucket - two buckets - ten buckets).[verification needed] Verbs have completely lost their dual forms.
[edit] Languages with dual number
- Proto-Indo-European language
- Avestan
- Old English (only the personal pronouns we two, you two and they two)
- Scottish Gaelic (only nouns, only following the numeral for 'two')
- Ancient Greek
- Old Irish
- Old Norse (some personal pronouns)
- Old Russian
- Sanskrit
- Slovenian
- Lower Sorbian
- Upper Sorbian
- Proto-Uralic language
- Proto-Semitic language
- Arabic : classical and modern Arabic
- Biblical Hebrew
- Maltese
- Inuktitut
- Quenya (not a natural language)
- American Sign Language
[edit] Notes
- ^ Howe, Stephen. The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages. A study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day. [Studia Linguistica Germanica, 43]. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996. (xxii + 390 pp.) pp. 193-195.
- ^ Common Slavic Grammar from the Indo-European Database
- ^ Mayer, Gerald L. (1973) "Common Tendencies in the Syntactic Development of 'Two', 'Three,' and 'Four' in Slavic." The Slavic and East European Journal 17.3:308–314.
