number (n.) (NUM)

A GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY used for the analysis of WORD-CLASSES displaying such CONTRASTS as singular (sg, SG, sing), plural (pl, PL), dual (du) (‘two’), trial (‘three’), paucal (‘few’), etc., as in English boy v. boys, he walks v. they walk. The contrasts generally correspond to the number of real-world entities referred to, but LINGUISTIC discussion has drawn attention to the problems involved in proposing any such straightforward one-to-one correlation. A NOUN, for example, may ‘look’ singular, but refer to a multiplicity of entities (e.g. the committee are agreed), and nouns which ‘look’ plural may refer to a single entity (e.g. billiards). There are in addition several analytical difficulties in relating the notion of number to that of COUNTABILITY (to explain the absence of such forms as *a butter).