Dual (grammatical number) in the context of "Polabian language"

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⭐ Core Definition: Dual (grammatical number)

Dual (abbreviated DU) 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 (objects or persons) identified by the noun or pronoun acting as a single unit or in unison. Verbs can also have dual agreement forms in these languages.

The dual number existed in Proto-Indo-European and persisted in many of its descendants, such as Ancient Greek and Sanskrit, which have dual forms across nouns, verbs, and adjectives; Gothic, which used dual forms in pronouns and verbs; and Old English (Anglo-Saxon), which used dual forms in its pronouns. It can still be found in a few modern Indo-European languages such as Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Lithuanian, Slovene, and Sorbian languages.

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Dual (grammatical number) in the context of Singular (grammatical number)

In linguistics, grammatical number is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other languages present number categories of singular or plural. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements.

The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see "Grammatical aspect".

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Dual (grammatical number) in the context of Inflection

In linguistic morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness. The inflection of verbs is called conjugation, while the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. can be called declension.

An inflection expresses grammatical categories with affixation (such as prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix, and transfix), apophony (as Indo-European ablaut), or other modifications. For example, the Latin verb ducam, meaning "I will lead", includes the suffix -am, expressing person (first), number (singular), and tense-mood (future indicative or present subjunctive). The use of this suffix is an inflection. In contrast, in the English clause "I will lead", the word lead is not inflected for any of person, number, or tense; it is simply the bare form of a verb. The inflected form of a word often contains both one or more free morphemes (a unit of meaning which can stand by itself as a word), and one or more bound morphemes (a unit of meaning which cannot stand alone as a word). For example, the English word cars is a noun that is inflected for number, specifically to express the plural; the content morpheme car is unbound because it could stand alone as a word, while the suffix -s is bound because it cannot stand alone as a word. These two morphemes together form the inflected word cars.

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Dual (grammatical number) in the context of Old Saxon

Old Saxon (Low German: Ooldsass'sche Spraak), also known as Old Low German (Low German: Ooldneddersche Spraak), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It is a West Germanic language, closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages. It is documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it gradually evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken throughout modern northwestern Germany, primarily in the coastal regions and in the eastern Netherlands by Saxons, a Germanic tribe that inhabited the region of Saxony. It partially shares Anglo-Frisian's (Old Frisian, Old English) Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law which sets it apart from Low Franconian and Irminonic languages, such as Dutch, Luxembourgish and German.

The grammar of Old Saxon was fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), three grammatical numbers (singular, plural, and dual), and three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). The dual forms occurred in the first and second persons only.

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Dual (grammatical number) in the context of Slovene language

Slovene (/ˈslvn/ SLOH-veen or /slˈvn, slə-/ sloh-VEEN, slə-) or Slovenian (/slˈvniən, slə-/ sloh-VEE-nee-ən, slə-; slovenščina [slɔˈʋèːnʃtʃina]) is a South Slavic language of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Most of its 2.5 million speakers are the inhabitants of Slovenia, the majority of them ethnic Slovenes. As Slovenia is part of the European Union, Slovene is also one of its 24 official and working languages. Its grammar is highly fusional, and it has a dual grammatical number, an archaic feature shared with some other Indo-European languages. Two accentual norms (one characterized by pitch accent) are used. Its flexible word order is often adjusted for emphasis or stylistic reasons, although basically it is an SVO language. It has a T–V distinction: the use of the V-form demonstrates a respectful attitude towards superiors and the elderly, while it can be sidestepped through the passive form.

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Dual (grammatical number) in the context of Yup'ik language

Central Alaskan Yupʼik (also rendered Yupik, Central Yupik, or indigenously Yugtun) is one of the languages of the Yupik family, in turn a member of the Eskimo–Aleut language group, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska. Both in ethnic population and in number of speakers, the Central Alaskan Yupik people form the largest group among Alaska Natives. As of 2010 Yupʼik was, after Navajo, the second most spoken aboriginal language in the United States. Yupʼik should not be confused with the related language Central Siberian Yupik spoken in Chukotka and St. Lawrence Island, nor Naukan Yupik likewise spoken in Chukotka.

Yupʼik, like all Eskimo languages, is polysynthetic and uses suffixation as primary means for word formation. There are a great number of derivational suffixes (termed postbases) that are used productively to form these polysynthetic words. Yupʼik has predominantly ergative alignment: case marking follows the ergative pattern for the most part, but verb agreement can follow an ergative or an accusative pattern, depending on grammatical mood. The language grammatically distinguishes three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. There is no marking of grammatical gender in the language, nor are there articles.

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Dual (grammatical number) in the context of Palmyrene Aramaic language

Palmyrene Aramaic was a Middle Aramaic dialect, exhibiting both Eastern and Western Aramaic grammatical features, and is therefore often regarded as a dialect continuum between the two branches. It was primarily documented in Palmyra itself, but also found in the western parts of the Roman Empire, extending as far as Britannia. Dated inscriptions range from 44 BCE to 274 CE, with over 4,000 known inscriptions, mostly comprising honorific, dedicatory, and funerary texts. The dialect still retains echoes of earlier Imperial Aramaic. The lexicon bears influences from both Koine Greek and, to some extent, Arabic.

The dual had disappeared from it.

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