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categories in general.
Moreover, alongside the "formal" gender, there exists in Russian, German and other "formal gender"
languages a meaningful gender, featuring, within the respective idiomatic systems, the natural sex distinctions
of the noun referents.
In particular, the Russian gender differs idiomatically from the English gender in so far as it divides the
nouns by the higher opposition not into "person-non-person" ("human-non-human"), but into "animate -
inanimate", discriminating within the former (the animate nounal set) between masculine, feminine, and a
limited number of neuter nouns. Thus, the Russian category of gender essentially divides the nouns into the
inanimate set having no meaningful gender, and the animate set having a meaningful gender. In distinction to
this, the English category of gender is only meaningful, and as such it is represented in the nounal system as a
whole.
C H A P T E R V I I
NOUN: NUMBER
§ 1. The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular
form of the noun. The strong member of this binary opposition is the plural, its productive formal mark being
the suffix -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz] as presented in the forms dog-dogs, clock-clocks, box-boxes. The productive formal
mark correlates with the absence of the number suffix in the singular form of the noun. The semantic content of
the unmarked form, as has been shown above, enables the grammarians to speak of the zero-suffix of the
singular in English.
The other, non-productive ways of expressing the number opposition are vowel interchange in several relict
forms (man - men, woman-women, tooth-teeth, etc.), the archaic suffix -(e)n supported by phonemic
interchange in a couple of other relict forms(ox-oxen, child-children, cow-kine, brother-brethren), the corre-
lation of individual singular and plural suffixes in a limited number of borrowed nouns (formula - formulae,
phenomenon - phenomena, alumnus-alumni, etc.). In some cases the plural form of the noun is homonymous
with the singular form (sheep, deer, fish, etc.).
§ 2. The semantic nature of the difference between singular and plural may present some difficulties of
interpretation.
On the surface of semantic relations, the meaning of the singular will be understood as simply "one", as
opposed to the meaning of the plural "many" in the sense of "more than one". This is apparently obvious for
such correlations as book - books, lake - lakes and the like. However, alongside these semantically unequivocal
correlations, there exist plurals and singulars that cannot be fully accounted for by the above ready-made
approach. This becomes clear when we take for comparison such forms as tear (one drop falling from the eye)
and tears (treacles on the cheeks as tokens of grief or joy), potato (one item of the vegetables) and potatoes
(food), paper (material) and papers (notes or documents), sky (the vault of heaven) and skies (the same sky
taken as a direct or figurative background), etc. As a result of the comparison we conclude that the broader
sememic mark of the plural, or "plurality" in the grammatical sense, should be described as the potentially
dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent, while the sememic mark of the singular will be
understood as the non-dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent, i.e. the presentation of the
referent in its indivisible entireness.
It is sometimes stated that the plural form indiscriminately presents both multiplicity of separate objects
("discrete" plural, e.g. three houses) and multiplicity of units of measure for an indivisible object ("plural of
measure", e.g. three hours) [Ilyish, 36 ff.]. However, the difference here lies not in the content of the plural as
such, but in the quality of the objects themselves. Actually, the singulars of the respective nouns differ from one
another exactly on the same lines as the plurals do (cf. one house - one hour).
On the other hand, there are semantic varieties of the plural forms that differ from one another in their plural
quality as such. Some distinctions of this kind were shown above. Some further distinctions may be seen in a
variety of other cases. Here belong, for example, cases where the plural form expresses a definite set of objects
(eyes of the face, wheels of the vehicle, etc.), various types of the referent (wines, tees, steels), intensity of the
presentation of the idea (years and years, thousands upon thousands), picturesqueness (sands, waters, snows).
The extreme point of this semantic scale is marked by the lexicalization of the plural form, i.e. by its serving as
a means of rendering not specificational, but purely notional difference in meaning. Cf. colours as a "flag",
attentions as "wooing", pains as "effort", quarters as "abode", etc.
The scope of the semantic differences of the plural forms might pose before the observer a question whether
the category of number is a variable grammatical category at all.