Talk:Dual (grammatical number)

message: The original text said 'In Sami' that refer to the people, not the language. So I elaborated that by adding Sami people, and added Lappish for better understanding on what people this refer to.
(Yes I am a speaker of Lappish and we do indeed use dualis both as a separate word, and this also change the grammatical form.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.208.187.46 (talk) 21:13, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

message: I have to point out the error of saying "In Croatian, Serbian, and Sorbian, the forms given are for the genitive, since there is no locative form." - There is a locative form for nouns in Croatian.
Example:
N. vuk
G. vuka
L. vuku
I don't know about Sorbian, but I'm pretty sure Serbian also has a locative form. 
Delete?
Also to the poster below me. All Slavic languages retained the dual in noun form (be it different forms or just accentual), Croatian and Serbian also (1 vuk, 2 vuka, 3 vuka, 4 vuka, 5 vukova...), but only the Slovene has the verb form, and a different form for 2, apart from 3 and 4. Kerebald (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Locative and the Dual in Croatian

message: English 'both'?
What about English use of 'both' as opposed to 'all'? Is this some sort of dual number too? --romanm 19:47, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a word which generally refers only to two, but it's not really part of a morphological paradigm or set of inflectional forms, so it's not the best example of a grammatical dual.  It falls between a word like "pair" and a true paradigmatic dual. AnonMoos 03:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: English both

message: Is there any theory why the Indo-European languages have all lost their and gone to a system with only singualr and plural (except for Slovene)? This seems odd to have happened separately and near-universally.  Xyzzyva 23:40, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
:The languages tend to simplify. (Even in informal Slovene the Dual number is sometimes replaced by plural.) komar
::Not really. It's just that people treat neuter nouns as maculine and use masculine dual (dva stola - dva okna). Other than that, dual is perfectly alive and kicking. Žarišče (talk) 22:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: In general, the popular language usage tends to simplify many forms, such as formal term  (with hyphen "-") spelled on the Internet over 80%  and so Google now matches both forms together. Similarly, linguists have noted reduction of hyphens in word "teen-ager" as now "teenager" or diaeresis "coöperative" as "cooperative" (to the point phone spell-correctors fail to recognize "coöp" as a word). Schools have even stopped teaching cursive writing, per the reason ppl who need to write fast would use keyboard entry, perhaps w/ spell-correct. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:01, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Explanation for the loss of the dual

message: I had proposed to merge this page with grammatical number. I think there is information here that could just as well be on the other page. However, I withdrew the suggestion, since I can't commit to this edit right now. :( FilipeS 13:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger with Grammatical Number? 

message: ===Grammatical number===
The following was in the main article on grammatical number, but I have decided to delete it (see here). I think it's more appropriate for this article, for the reasons explained in the other Talk page. However, since it seems to contain some inaccuracies (see here), I thought it would be better to leave it here, so that it would be corrected by someone who knows Slovene, and added to this article.
Slovene, a Slavic language, is more complicated:
* Barva (a color) (singular), barvi (two colors) (dual), barve (three or four colors), barv (five and so on)
* Hiša (house) (singular), hiši (two houses) (dual), hiše (three or four houses) (plural), hiš (five or more houses) (plural)
* Miš (mouse) (singular), miši (two or more mice) (dual := plural)
* Jaz (I) (singular), midva/midve (we) (dual + [Masculine/Feminine gender]), mi/me (we) (plural [Ma/Fe gender])
* Vrata (one door) (singular), dvoje vrat (two doors) (dual), troje vrat (three doors) (plural), [plural noun with different or same form]
* babine (one afterbirth period) (archaic word) (singular), babini (two afterbirth periods) (dual), babine (three or four afterbirth periods) [plural noun with different or same form], babin (five or more afterbirth periods)
* Človeštvo (mankind) (singular), človeštvi (two mankind) (dual), človeštva (three or four mankind), človeštev (five or more mankind) [collective noun with different form]
Note:
*When a number reaches one hundred and one (two) (or several hundred or thousand and so on), singular and dual are used again. (ena knjiga (one book) (singular),dve knjigi (two books) (dual), pet knjig (five books) (plural), sto ena knjiga (101 books) sto dve knjigi(102 books))
*These and similar examples are very often used incorrectly, even in published or electronic dictionaries.
FilipeS 14:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Slovene

message: The following was in the main article on grammatical number, but I have decided to delete it (see here). I think it's more appropriate for this article, for the reasons explained in the other Talk page. However, since it seems to contain some inaccuracies (see here), I thought it would be better to leave it here, so that it would be corrected by someone who knows Slovene, and added to this article.
Slovene, a Slavic language, is more complicated:
* Barva (a color) (singular), barvi (two colors) (dual), barve (three or four colors), barv (five and so on)
* Hiša (house) (singular), hiši (two houses) (dual), hiše (three or four houses) (plural), hiš (five or more houses) (plural)
* Miš (mouse) (singular), miši (two or more mice) (dual := plural)
* Jaz (I) (singular), midva/midve (we) (dual + [Masculine/Feminine gender]), mi/me (we) (plural [Ma/Fe gender])
* Vrata (one door) (singular), dvoje vrat (two doors) (dual), troje vrat (three doors) (plural), [plural noun with different or same form]
* babine (one afterbirth period) (archaic word) (singular), babini (two afterbirth periods) (dual), babine (three or four afterbirth periods) [plural noun with different or same form], babin (five or more afterbirth periods)
* Človeštvo (mankind) (singular), človeštvi (two mankind) (dual), človeštva (three or four mankind), človeštev (five or more mankind) [collective noun with different form]
Note:
*When a number reaches one hundred and one (two) (or several hundred or thousand and so on), singular and dual are used again. (ena knjiga (one book) (singular),dve knjigi (two books) (dual), pet knjig (five books) (plural), sto ena knjiga (101 books) sto dve knjigi(102 books))
*These and similar examples are very often used incorrectly, even in published or electronic dictionaries.
FilipeS 14:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Grammatical number

message: I have just deleted the following section:
====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). Verbs have completely lost their dual forms.
In essence, the same is true about Ukrainian and Russian languages overall, not just this dialect. There is a difference between the plural forms for a) two objects and b) five or six or seven objects, but that doesn't make a) a dual. See discussion above. Is the form a) not applicable to three or four objects? Why is there no example that shows that this dialect is any different in this respect? If there were one, it would need to be verified. Sergivs-en 18:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the claim is that the form of the noun used with 2-3-4 is distinct from the genitive singular for feminine and neuter nouns. This would be then different from standard Ukrainian (and Russian). But the information would have to be verified (and the text above rewritten, so I agree with your deletion). CapnPrep 21:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ukrainian

message: Somme comments on the recent rewrite of this section (which I like, overall):
*What are the "dual characteristics" of the declension of two that "can be verified" in the first table?
*There is no single rule for 2-3-4 in the modern Slavic languages that have lost the dual. The article currently suggests that in all of these languages, the genitive singular form of the noun is used to form a nominative NP. This is not true, for example, in Polish, where the nominative plural is used. This rule is also inappropriate for Southern Slavic languages with no case morphology.
*The "five and above" rule needs to mention higher numerals that end in 1 or 2-3-4 (e.g. twenty-one through twenty-four). Again, there is no single rule valid for all non-dual Slavic languages.
*This section should be moved into a separate article; it is completely out of proportion with the other languages and language families treated.
CapnPrep 22:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite

message: I still don't get the significance of the table enumerating the inflectional forms of "two" in more and more Slavic languages. If the claim is that the declension pattern of "two" and "both" displays specific dual characteristics, this has to be shown in comparison to typical paradigms for other numerals and quantifiers. And then, is it necessary to do this for a dozen languages? CapnPrep 12:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Since this is a section on the dual in the Slavic languages, I think that the dual forms in each of the Slavic languages should be mentioned. However, it may be more appropriate to place this section as its own article, where a complete listing can be given. The forms in this section would then be shorten to a respresentative sample (say Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, and Sorbic) with a comparison between the singlular, plural, and dual endings. Woollymammoth 02:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Declension table

message: To clarify: Slavic languages use the genitive ("of" form) of nouns in connection with most expressions of quantity EXCEPT the numbers 1-4. Thus the expression for "five beers" literally  translates as "a five of beers". The use of the dual in Slovene, or remnants of this form in other languages, is a separate issue. 
Taking beer as the example, the Czech is:
1 pivo (singular), 2 piva (plural), 3 piva (plural), 4 piva (plural), 5 piv (genitive plural).
In Slovene, I believe it would be
1 pivo (singular), 2 pivi (dual), 3 piva (plural), 4 piva (plural), 5 piv (genitive plural).
I apologise if I've got the Slovene examples wrong, but the principle still applies.
:You got the Slovene examples right. While in Slovene "five beer" would only roughly (hardly) translate as "a five of beers" it is still true that for 5-and-above the genetive plural form is used. I think this explanation with genetive plural form removes all concerns about implication of more than three (singular, dual, plural) numbers. I might be talking about 10 bears or general plural of bears and I would still say "Medvedje so v kleti." (Bears are in the basement!) and still Five bears in the basement. would be Pet medvedov je v kleti.. Beers might not be such good example, because we would much rather like to talk about beer as a mass of liquid (Pivo je v kleti - Beer is in the basement). 222.152.244.105 13:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dual and Genitive 

message: As has been mentioned by others above, I would propose that the section "Dual in the Slavic Languages" be split off as a separate article. A short summary of the Slavic dual should be presented, along with a section on both Slovenian and Sorbic, which have maintained the dual. It would be nice to include the forms for the verbs as well. Woollymammoth 02:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting off the Dual in the Slavic Languages as a separate article

message: I remember from high school Latin that the pre-Golden Age (pre-Virgil) Latin had a dual. I'll look it up, and then work up a section. Has anyone else heard this? samwaltz 22:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The word diviginti seemed to be just a mistake. I have changed it to viginti. Burzuchius (talk) 15:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Latin

message: The Hebrew words are transcribed using Ashkenazic pronunciation, even when the text refers to the language "as spoken in the State of Israel". --Smack (talk) 18:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hebrew transcriptions 

message: English has words distinguishing dual vs. plural number, including: both/all, between/among, latter/last, either/any, and neither/none.  Japanese, which has no grammatical number, also has words dochira (which of the two) and dore (which of the three or more), etc.
CapnPrep spent a long time over at the grammatical gender article getting it through my thick skull that the instances of gender inflection in English are so insignificant that they're not enough to say that English has grammatical genders. I quite agree. But exactly the same is true of so-called "duals" in English. In short: English doesn't really have dual number. FilipeS 14:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If we mention Swedish begge, we have to mention English both for the same reason: it's a  dual-like construction. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 14:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then we can mention Croatian oba/obje and tons of such expressions that can be found for almost any language. This has little to do with the actual grammatical dual. Admiral Norton (talk) 17:21, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If the "both/all" distinction is verifiably common even in languages without dual, reporting on this distinction in the general case might be worth it. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 02:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  English: inappropriate example 

message: This has been recently added to the article:
:Bulgarian The loss of the dual led to the creation of the numerical plural form (broyna mnozhestvena forma) in the masculine, which follows all numbers, as well as several words like kolko (how many) and nyakolko (several) 
: stol (chair) → mnogo stolove (many chairs) → dva stola (two chairs)
I must admit I'm having trouble making out what this is supposed to mean. Could somebody more knowledgable work on it and make it more understandble? TomorrowTime (talk) 08:03, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bulgarian 

message: The table should be changed to have a single column for each case, since there is no genitive-locative parallel in some languages, like Croatian. Admiral Norton (talk) 20:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And the Czech row is wrong.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.179.235.249 (talk) 23:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The dual in the Slavic languages 

message: http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaizdas:2_LT_1925_A.png
The picture shows a 1925 Lithuanian 2 Litas coin with the inscription in dual.
The modern version has the inscription already in plural: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/2_litai_coin_%281997%29.jpg
If you find this interesting and appropriate, please insert the pictures into the article and edit the text as seems fit. I'm new to Wikipedia editing, sorry.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.59.224.136 (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to disappoint you, but the dual is alive and kicking in Slovene, a major living Indo-European language. In fact, here's a picture of a 1993 Slovenian 2 tolar coin with the dual:  (compare with the singular 1 tolar  and the plural 5 tolars . TomorrowTime (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Probably the last official use of dual number in a living Indo-European language 

message: The part on Slovene dual gives too much weight on one study and is generally a confused mass of different things: language development from Old Church Slavic to Slovenian, situation in Standard Literary Slovenian, and situations in spokene Slovene and dialects.
Section should be cleared up by most importantly describing first Standard Literary Slovenian, which employes complete dual system (which by the way doesn't mean "same as in Old Church Slavic", but "fully within the bounds of the grammar, i.e. with nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc...). Then can be mentioned separately dialects and dialectal studies, spoken Slovene, etc, and processes there can be described. Statments about the development of dual should be removed and placed in another section higher in the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.201.212.157 (talk) 14:09, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slovene 

message: Hi,
I'm not a linguist so I'm not sure the following information counts as "fully functioning as a paradigmatic category". In Munster Irish feminine nouns have a dual form. The nominative dual is the same in form as the dative singular and the genitive dual is the same in form as the genitive plural. The adjective qualifying the noun uses the plural form, there is no dual form for adjectives. I don't know of a reference in English, but in Irish: Diarmuid Ó Sé "Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne", p.223.
AnSpideogDhubh (talk) 22:06, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not only the case in Munster, though in the other dialects (and the Caighdeán), only a limited number of nouns (all parts of the body) have separate dual forms: dhá láimh, dhá chois, dhá chluais (as opposed to the singulars lámh, cos, cluas). Kokoshneta (talk) 15:38, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Dual in Irish

message: I feel it was a bad idea to choose the word for "wolf" as an example in the various Slavic languages, because it raises other, irrelevant issues in what is already a complicated matter. First, the Polish word "wilk" turns out have a second, irregular plural form "wilcy", which is in any case marked as "rare" - so it could surely have been omitted here, since it has nothing to do with the dual, which is after all the subject of this article. Second, the Slovene word "volk" is one of only a small number of masculine nouns that form their plural and dual with the infixed syllable '-ov-' - most masculine nouns simply add '-i' for the plural and '-a' for the dual, but 'volk' just happens to become 'volkovi' and 'volkova' rather than 'volki' and 'volka', another irrelevant issue that can only confuse the struggling learner. Not knowing all the languages involved as well as I do Russian and Slovene, I can't think off-hand of a better example that would not raise similarly irrelevant issues somewhere, and of course you need to find a word that's almost the same in all of them. But I'm sure a competent Slavicist could find something suitable.188.230.248.85 (talk) 13:56, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Choice of the word for "wolf" as an example 

message: Article says: "An example of the dual form is יום / יומים / ימים‬ yōm / yomạyim / yāmīm "day / two days / [two or more] days". Some words occur so often in pairs that the form with the dual suffix -ạyim . . . ."
: The first sentence above is very obtuse. Can someone clarify it?  Was it not technically possible to write those Hebrew words with vowel pointing? It looks like the writer is saying that the dual form uses a holem vav instead of mere holem; which surely is not his meaning. I am thinking it should be stated that the dual morpheme is now an assumption which was not written originally. We are assuming that there was a dual pronounced differently from the plural, marked by the centuries later vowel pointing system, none of which was in the original. I am thinking that to make this statement clear, a pathach has to be inserted to show the dual, as with יוֹמַ֫יִם 
(PeacePeace (talk) 04:19, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: The Hebrew dual is obscure for lack of vowel pointing