[Lingtyp] Query: looking for singulatives

Mon May 13 09:51:17 UTC 2019

On the surface at least, rice is [+count] in Danish (ris) and [-count] in German (Reis). So in a recipe, you would cook ‚the rices‘ (risene) in Danish and ‚the rice‘ (den Reis) in German.
On the other hand, with spaghetti it is the other way round: Danish spaghetti is singular and [-count], while German Spaghetti is a plurale tantum (hence inherently [+count]).
I am not aware of a singulative in either language to refer to a single piece of spaghetti, while for a single grain of rice, you can say Reiskorn in German (which is, of course, a lexical singulative) but strangely enough also riskorn (not en ris) in Danish.

Hartmut Haberland
Professor emeritus
[RUC]

Roskilde University
Department of Communication and Arts
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde
Telephone: +45 46742841

Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af David Gil
Sendt: 13. maj 2019 10:30
Til: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Query: looking for singulatives

Hi Silva,

In Sinitic languages (especially southern ones), Vietnamese, and elsewhere in the region, there is a construction of the general form

CLF N

i.e. a noun preceded by a numeral classifier.  The resulting construction is almost invariably singular — the exception being cases where the classifier itself has inherent plural semantics.  (In addition, the construction in question is associated with the classificatory semantics of the classifier, plus also various (in)definiteness effects, e.g. it is usually definite in Cantonese but indefinite in Mandarin.)

Is this a singulative?  The only reason not to call it such might be that the classifier is usually considered to be a "separate word", whereas the term "singulative" is generally used in the context of morphology.  However — as Martin Haspelmath frequently reminds us — the notion of wordhood is problematic and often unduly influenced by the standard orthography, which, in the case of Chinese and Vietnamese at least, strongly prejudices us towards a "separate word" analysis.

Indeed, one could perhaps make a case that the familiar articles of many western European languages are also singulatives ...  This is but another example of the problems inherent in the positing of comparative concepts that make reference to the morphology/syntax distinction.  I am not proposing that we do away with this distinction; in particular, in the domain in question, there does seem to be good reason to distinguish between the domains of "Number" (morphological) and "Quantification" (syntactic).  It's just that the abundance of problematic "in-between" cases means that we need to try and make our criteria as explicit as we possibly can.

David

On 13/05/2019 14:15, Nurmio, Silva M wrote:

Dear all,

I’m looking for data on singulatives and I’m writing to ask for your help in tracking down more instances of this phenomenon. There is so far no comprehensive list of singulatives in the world’s languages that’s informed by an operational definition of what constitutes a singulative, and my aim is to produce such a database.

My working definition of the singulative is that it is a noun form with any marker (inflectional or derivational) that creates a meaning ‘one’ or ‘(one) unit’ when added to a base, i.e. a singulativizing and individuating marker. Bases for singulatives tend to be mass nouns, plurals, collectives of different kinds, general number forms, and sometimes non-nominal bases like adjectives. Here are four examples of different types of singulatives under my definition:

(1) Bayso (Afro-Asiatic): lúban ‘lion(s)’ (general number), singulative lúban-titi ‘a lion’

(2) Russian (Indo-European) gorox ‘pea(s)’ (mass), singulative goroš-ina ‘a pea’

(3) Italian (Indo-European) cioccolato ’chocolate’ (mass), singulative cioccolat-ino ’a chocolate praline, chocolate sweet’

(4) Welsh (Indo-European) unigol ‘individual’ (adjective), singulative unigol-yn ‘an individual’

These examples show that singulatives occur in different number systems, and they can be productive or unproductive (like the Russian -ina suffix). I also include diminutive markers which have a singulative function, as seen in (3) (Jurafsky 1996 calls this the ’partitive’ function of diminutives). Forms that are singulatives are often not described as such in grammars (especially types 3 and 4), making them harder to find. I am also including singulatives in older language stages which have since been lost (e.g. Old Irish).

Below is a list of languages (alphabetical order) on which I already have data. I would be very grateful for any pointers to grammars, language descriptions or other mentions of singulatives in languages which are not on the list, or if you think there are sources for any of the already listed languages that I’m likely to have missed.

Thank you very much in advance!

Best wishes,

Silva Nurmio

Aari

Akkadian

Arabic (several dialects)

Arbore

Baiso/Bayso

Baule

Berber

Bidyogo

Bora

Breton

Burushaski

Cantonese

Cornish

Dagaare

Dutch

Enets (Forest Enets and Tundra Enets)

Ewe

Fox

Gede'o

Hebrew

Imonda

Italian

Itelmen

Kambaata

Kiowa

Krongo

Majang

Maltese

Marle (Murle)

Masa

Miraña

Nafusi

Nahuatl (all dialects?)

Ojibwe (all dialects?)

Old Irish

Oromo (Borana dialect)

Resígaro

Russian

Shilluk

Shona

Sidamo

Swahili

Tariana

Tewa

Tigre

Tiwa

Towa

Turkana

Ukrainian

Welsh

Yiddish

Zulu

Dr Silva Nurmio
Research Fellow
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Fabianinkatu 24 (P.O. Box 4)
00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/portal/en/person/sinurmio

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David Gil

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

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Email: gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>

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