Collectives in the Romance Languages

Just like other semantic subtypes of nouns such as event nouns or agent nouns, collectives may be morphologically opaque lexemes, but they are also regularly derived in many languages. Perhaps not a word-formation category as productive as event nouns or agent nouns, collective nouns still represent a category associated with particular means of word formation, in the case of the Romance languages by means of derivational suffixes. The Romance languages all have suffixes for deriving collectives, but only very few go directly back to Latin. In most cases, they evolve from other derivational suffixes via metonymic changes of individual derived nouns, notably event nouns and quality nouns. Due to the ubiquity of these changes, series of semantically and morphologically equivalent collectives trigger functional changes of the suffixes themselves, which may then acquire collective meaning. Most of these suffixes are pan-Romance, in many cases going back to very early changes, or to inter-Romance loans. The different Romance languages have overlapping inventories of suffixes, with different degrees of productivity and different semantic niches. The ease of transition from event or quality noun to collective also explains why only few suffixes are exclusively used for the derivation of collective nouns.

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns such as family, group, and herd combine properties associated with singularity or ‘oneness’ and properties associated with plurality, on all levels of grammar (lexical–conceptual, morphosyntactic, and semantic). Because of this property, they provide a unique window into the various factors that influence the expression and interpretation of grammatical number. This chapter starts out with a general introduction to the various conceptual and grammatical properties of collectives as well as the various ways in which they have been described and classified in different linguistic subfields. Then, it zooms in on their formal semantics, focusing on two central questions in particular: first, are collective nouns semantic plurals that are sometimes forced to behave like singulars, singulars that are sometimes allowed to behave like plurals, or simply ambiguous? And, second, how is the interpretation of an NP as either an indivisible atom or a quantifiable set influenced by morphosyntactic number marking?

Lietuvių kalbos sinonimiškų bendrašaknių asmenų pavadinimų darybos kategorijos

In the Lithuanian language, persons are named by simple words and formations. The latter are divided into the categories of derivation according to their derivational meaning. The categories of derivation involve synonymous formations, i.e., derivative synonyms, and some formations are coherent in variance relation (they are derivative variants). The article aims to analyse the categories of derivation of synonymous conjugate personal names. The methods of derivational and semantic analysis, as well as calculation, were applied in the present research. The article discusses 1179 nominal personal names (out of these formations 338 rows of derivative synonyms and derivative variants were formed) collected from LKŽe, LKŽ, Volumes 1 and 2. After analysis of the empirical material, the following conclusions have been drawn: the formations of conjugate personal names were grouped into five categories of noun derivation: names of possessors of nominal characteristics (baldininkas, -ė – baldžius), names of persons according to profession (akmenininkas, -ė 1 / akmeninykas, -ė / akmeninkas, -ė / akmenykas, -ė – akmenkalis, -ė / akmenkalys, -ė – akmentašys, -ė), names according to origin (names of persons according to their place of origin and place of residence (adutiškėnas – adutiškietis, -ė); names of children according to their parents (antrasūnis – pasūnis – posūnis)), names according to gender differences (bernėnė – bernienė 1), names of collective nouns (bernynė – bernava – bernija). Only derivatives with suffixes and endings belong to the categories of noun derivation, but often persons are named by using derivatives with prefixes and compounds. Therefore, not only derivatives with suffixes and endings but also derivatives with prefixes and/or compounds belong to some rows of derivational synonyms (derivational variants). A big part of synonymous conjugate formations is composed of compounds (atlapaširdis, -ė – atviraširdis, -ė). These derivational synonyms (derivational variants) are not included in other traditional categories of derivation.

Identyfikacja tematów na *-(j)ū w materiale polskim i słowiańskim

IDENTIFICATION OF *-(j)ū-STEMS IN POLISH AND SLAVIC MATERIAL The paper discusses the question of the substitution of the stem suffix *-ъv- for the suffix *-ъka, which converts words from the *-(j)ū- to the *-a-declension, as well as the problem of identification of original *-(j)ū-stems. An analysis of Polish and Slavic material leads to the conclusion that a part of nouns that are commonly regarded as *-(j)ū-stems have in fact a different origin: some can be derived from collective nouns in *-va (still productive in East Slavic), e.g. *kuropъtva, *plotva, *ǫtva, and a part have probably been extended with an unmotivated labial element -v- which has the appearance of a relic of a *-ū-stem, but appears most commonly after roots that end in a velar consonant or a spirant-stop sequence. The paper argues against the hypothesis about late (Proto-)Slavic activization of *-ū-stems and proposes instead that a part of this class had been eliminated at a prehistoric stage, depending on the quality of the stem consonant.

Plurals

The Plurals chapter of the 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style describes how plurals are formed, parenthetical plurals, when not to use plurals, and plurals of symbols, letters, numbers, and years. Also considered are collective nouns, Latin and Greek vs English plurals, plurals of microorganisms and abbreviations, and false singulars.

Grammar

The Grammar chapter of the 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style focuses on how to avoid common grammatical and writing errors. Topics include often-encountered dilemmas: who vs whom, that vs which, the number vs a number, a vs an. Guidance on frequent stumbling blocks such as double negatives, subject-verb agreement, false singulars and false plurals, collective nouns, compound subjects, misplaced modifiers, verbal phrase danglers, and parallel construction is illustrated with updated examples. The discussion of verbs considers voice, mood, and tense. Avoidance of idioms, colloquialisms, and slang, as well as euphemisms and clichés, is advised in material intended for an academic audience. A subsection on grammar considerations in social media has been added, as well as inclusion of they as a singular pronoun. A list of additional readings and general references concludes the chapter.

Collectives in the Qur'Ān Revisited: Another Possibility of Semantic Agreement

The present paper revisits Dror's (2016a) analysis of collective nouns and their agreement patterns in the Qur'ān. Collectives are ‘unmarked plurals’, i.e. morphologically singular nouns that semantically refer to a plurality of entities. With respect to agreement, Dror distinguishes between singular agreement (syntactic) and plural agreement (semantic), signalling respectively a holistic or distributive reference. We argue that, although the consideration of plural agreement as semantically motivated is correct, gender should also be taken into consideration, especially when a mismatch occurs between morphologically masculine singular collectives and feminine singular agreeing targets. The present paper, grounded in a typological approach, demonstrates that feminine singular agreement with masculine singular controllers represents another form of semantic agreement, in which the controller is considered as a non-individuated plural.

THE SINGULATIVE MARKER n- IN CHADIC LANGUAGES: A RECONSTRUCTION

The Afro-asiatic macro family includes Chadic, Semitic, Egyptian, Cushitic, Omotic, and Berber languages. The Chadic branch consists of about 170 languages spoken in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. The present paper continues a series of publications on Chadic diachronic morphology, focusing on prefixal derivation morphology. (For the velar prefix k- in different noun groups of Chadic languages and the verbalizing prefix ˀa-, see: [Stolbova 2015; 2018]. We propose a reconstruction of the singulative marker n- in Chadic nouns. As follows from our previous studies, lexicalized (or “frozen”) affixes are typical of unwritten Chadic languages; they can be uncovered only on the basis of lexical comparison. A careful analysis of singular forms derived from collective nouns denoting people, hoofed animals or insects suggests that the initial nasal in singular forms should be identified as a derivational prefix. We argue that in Chadic languages, n-forms precipitated the tendency to prenasalize primary singular nouns with the abovementioned semantics (people, animal, insect names). We also discuss external cognates pointing to the proto-Chadic origin of this prefix. Further research, on other Chadic noun groups (wild animals, birds, snakes) and especially on Semitic and Cushitic could clarify whether this morphological innovation was exclusive to Chadic or was shared by other Afro-asiatic languages.