Dual (grammatical number)
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Dual forms exist in some languages in addition to singular and plural forms of nouns and pronouns; the latin term is dualis. When a dual form is used, the intent is to indicate that there are precisely two of the things referred to by the noun or pronoun.
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[edit] Comparative characteristics
Most, but not all, languages make a distinction between singular and plural: English, for example, distinguishes between 'man' and 'men', or 'house' and 'houses'. In some languages, in addition to such singular and plural forms there is also a dual form, which is used when exactly two people or things are meant. If English had a dual (let's imagine it involved adding -a to the singular), 'man' might go something like this: one man, two mana, three men etc. In many languages with dual forms, use of the dual is mandatory, and the plural is used only for groups greater than two. In some languages, however (for example, many modern Arabic dialects, including Egyptian Arabic), use of the dual is optional. In other languages (for example, Hebrew), the dual exists only for a few measure words and for words that naturally come in pairs (such as eyes). In Slovenian, strangely, the dual is used for most nouns, but not for nouns that come in natural pairs (like socks or eyes); the plural is used instead. In many other Slavic languages there is a special plural for counting 2, as well as 3 and 4 (see zloty for an example in Polish).
Although relatively few languages have the dual number and most have no number or only singular and plural, using different words for groups of two and groups greater than two is not uncommon. English has words distinguishing dual vs. plural number, including: both/all, between/among, latter/last, either/any, and neither/none. Japanese, which today has no grammatical number, also has words dochira (which of the two) and dore (which of the three or more).
[edit] Use in modern languages
Among living languages, modern standard Arabic has a mandatory dual number, marked on nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. (First-person dual forms, however, do not exist; compare this to the lack of third-person dual forms in the old Germanic languages.) Many of the spoken Arabic dialects have a dual marking for nouns (only), but its use is not mandatory. Hebrew, a related Semitic language, also has some forms of dual, largely for measurements of time, parts of the body and things that come in pairs, such as שבועיים /ʃvua'jim/ (two weeks), אופניים /Ofɐna'jim/ (bicycles), עיניים /ʕeɪna'jim/ (eyes), שיניים /ʃina'jim/ (teeth, even all 32), מכנסיים /Mɪxnasa'jim/ (pants), שדיים /ʃada'jim/ (breasts), and משקפיים /miʃqafa'jim/ (eyeglasses). Likewise, Akkadian had a dual number, though its use was confined to standard phrases like "two hands", "two eyes", and "two arms".
The Inuktitut language uses dual forms, the related Greenlandic language, however, does not.
In Austronesian languages, particularly Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Niuean and Tongan, possess a dual number for pronouns but not for nouns (indeed, they tend not to mark nouns for number at all). Other Austronesian languages, particularly those spoken in the Philippines, have a dual first-person pronoun; these languages include Ilokano (data), Tausug (kita), and Kapampangan (ikata). These forms mean we, but specifically you and I. This form once existed in Tagalog but has largely disappeared, save for certain rural dialects, since the middle of the 20th century.
The dual was a standard feature of the Proto-Uralic language, and lives on in Sami languages and Samoyedic languages, while other branches like Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian have lost it. Sami also features dual pronouns, expressing the concept of "we two here" as contrasted to "we". Nenets, a Samoyedic language, features a complete set of dual possessive suffixes for two systems, the number of possessor and the number of possessed objects (for example, "two houses of us two" expressed in one word).
The dual form is also used in several modern Indo-European languages, such as Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian and Sorbian (see below for details). The dual was a common feature of all early Slavic languages at the beginning of the second millennium.
[edit] Dual form in Indo-European languages
From comparisons of existing and recorded languages, linguists have concluded that the Proto-Indo-European language had dual forms. This use was preserved in the earliest records of Indo-European languages. This is best represented in Sanskrit, with a mandatory dual number for all inflected categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. The Ancient Greek language used in the Homeric texts, the Iliad and Odyssey, likewise had dual forms for all inflected categories, although their use was only sporadic, owing as much to artistic prerogatives as dictional and metrical requirements within the hexameter meter. In the classical dialects, the dual tended to disappear but was continued in the Attic dialect of Athens through the fifth century B.C, again sporadically according the author's taste and certain stock conventions.
Old Church Slavonic and Proto-Slavic (the ancestor of the Slavic languages) had dual forms, as did Old Irish and Avestan. (Sanskrit and the Slavic languages agree in showing only three dual forms for nouns: nominative-accusative-vocative, dative-ablative-instrumental, and genitive-locative. Ancient Greek had only two forms, and Old Irish only one. Avestan has a genitive dual separate from the locative, but this may not go back to Proto-Indo-European.)
The dual form was present in the early Germanic languages. Gothic had first- and second-person dual marking on verbs and pronouns; Old English, Old Norse and other old Germanic languages had dual marking only on first- and second-person pronouns. The dual has disappeared from all modern Germanic languages -- although only quite recently in North Frisian[1]. Interestingly, the old dual pronouns have become the standard plural pronouns in Icelandic. The last reminder in the Scandinavian languages is the pronoun begge ("both"): You have to say begge to ("the (both) two") and alle tre ("the all three") - it's impossible to say *alle to ("the all two").
Early Celtic languages show dual forms, and in modern Scottish Gaelic dual forms of nouns are required following the numeral dà ("two"). However, when no numeral is present the plural form is used. In the case of masculine nouns, the dual form is identical to that of the singular, however in conservative usage some feminine nouns have a distinct dual form. Example: with a masculine noun - dà chù "two dogs" (singular cù) vs. trì coin "three dogs"; with a feminine noun - dà làimh "two hands" (singular làmh) vs. trì làmhan "three hands". Brythonic languages (Breton language, Welsh language, Cornish language) still have it.
Among Indo-European languages of the present day, the dual form endured relatively long in the Slavic languages. Slovenian uses the dual number in full (although it tends to disappear in informal speech among young people), and Sorbian, the Slavic language of a very small minority in Germany, also uses the dual number. Among the Baltic languages, the dual form existed but is now obsolete in standard Lithuanian, being used in poetic contexts and some dialects.
[edit] Examples
[edit] Austro-Bavarian
In Austro-Bavarian the old dual form is used today for all plurals. There is no separate dual form anymore.
- Adoption of the plural:
- in Austro-Bav. ös 'you (pl. nominative) < you (nominative) two'
- in Austro-Bav. enk 'you (pl. accusative) < you (accusative) two'
[edit] Gothic
- Got. weis "we" vs. wit "we both"
[edit] Lithuanian
| Singular | Dual | Plural |
| vyras ("Man") | vyru | vyrai |
| mergina ("Girl") | mergini | merginos |
| einu ("I go") | einava | einame |
[edit] Languages with dual number
- Proto-Indo-European language
- Avestan
- Old English (only the personal pronouns we two, you two and they two)
- Scottish Gaelic (only nouns, only following the numeral for 'two')
- Ancient Greek
- Old Irish
- Old Norse (some personal pronouns)
- Old Russian
- Sanskrit
- Slovenian
- Lower Sorbian
- Upper Sorbian
- Proto-Uralic language
- Proto-Semitic language
- Arabic : classical and modern Arabic
- Biblical Hebrew
- Maltese
- Inuktitut
- Quenya (not a natural language)
- American Sign Language
[edit] Notes
- ^ Howe, Stephen. The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages. A study of personal pronoun morphology and change in the Germanic languages from the first records to the present day. [Studia Linguistica Germanica, 43]. Berlin: de Gruyter,1996. (xxii + 390 pp.) pp. 193-195.
