Binary Noun

A ; ) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular form is rarely used.

In English, are often words that denote objects that occur or function as pairs or sets, such as spectacles, trousers, pants, scissors, clothes, or genitals. Other examples are for collections that, like alms, cannot conceivably be singular. Other examples include suds, jeans, outskirts, odds, riches, goods, news, gallows (although later treated as singular), surroundings, thanks, and heroics.

In some languages, refer to points or periods of time (for example, Latin 'calends, the first day of the month', German 'vacation, holiday'), or to events (for example, Finnish 'wedding'), or to liquids (for example, Hebrew () and Chichewa , both 'water').

A bilingual example is the Latin word that was brought into English; when referring to the symbol of authority, it is a noun in both languages.

English usage

In English, some nouns have a singular form used only attributively. Phrases such as "trouser press" and "scissor kick" contain the singular form, but it is considered nonstandard to say "a trouser" or "a scissor" on its own (though in the fashion and tailoring industries use of "trouser" in the singular to refer to a particular style occurs). That accords with the strong preference for singular nouns in attributive positions in English, but some words are used in the plural form even as attributive nouns, such as "clothes peg", "glasses case" – notwithstanding "spectacle case" and "eyeglass case".

In English, a word may have many definitions only some of which are ''pluralia tantum''. The word "glasses" (a set of corrective lenses to improve eyesight) is ''plurale tantum''. In contrast, the word "glass"—either a container for drinks (a count noun) or a vitreous substance (a mass noun)—may be singular or plural. Some words, such as "brain" and "intestine", can be used as either ''plurale tantum'' nouns or count nouns.

''Singulare tantum''

The term for a noun that appears only in the singular form is (), such as the English words: information, dust, and wealth. is defined by the ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' as " A word having only a singular form; ''esp.'' a non-count noun." Such nouns may refer to a unique singular object (essentially a proper noun), but more often than not, they refer to uncountable nouns, either mass nouns (referring to a substance that cannot be counted as distinct objects, such as 'milk') or collective nouns (referring to objects that may in principle be counted but are referred to as one, such as 'popcorn' or Arabic , , 'mulberry'). Given that they do not have a number distinction, they may appear as in one language but as in another. Compare English ''water'' to the Hebrew , ().

In English, such words are almost always mass nouns. Some uncountable nouns can be alternatively used as count nouns when meaning "a type of", and the plural means "more than one type of". For example, ''strength'' is uncountable in ''Strength is power'', but it can be used as a countable noun to mean an ''instance'' of ''kind'' ofstrength, as in ''My strengths are in physics and chemistry.'' Some words, especially proper nouns such as the name of an individual, are nearly always in the singular form because there is only one example of what that noun means. Others like "nothingness" or "emptiness" refer to logical states of absence that can't sensibly be quantified at all, hence are not usefully "mass nouns" but are still .

Usage in other languages

''Pluralia tantum'' vary arbitrarily between languages. For example, in Swedish, a pair of scissors is just (), not a . Similarly, in French, a pair of trousers is , while in Spanish (singular) and (plural) are both valid ways to refer to a single garment. Additionally, in German, the term "Jeans" which is borrowed from the English, is rendered singular feminine as in accordance with the singular feminine word meaning "trousers".

In some other languages, rather than quantifying a noun with a measure word, special numeral forms are used in such cases. In Polish, for example, "one pair of eyeglasses" is expressed as either (one-''plural'' glasses-''plural'') or (one-''singular'' pair-''singular'' glasses-''genitive plural''). For larger quantities, "collective numeral" forms are available: (three doors), (five violins). Compare them to the ordinary numeral forms found in Polish: (three films/five films)

The Russian (, 'money') originally had a singular, (), which meant a copper coin worth half a kopeck.

The Yiddish word is a well known example of a that is also plural only in other languages into which it is borrowed, 'one of the kreplach' would be ().

The Welsh , 'heaven', is the plural of , which is no longer part of the spoken language. is now used with the singular meaning of 'heaven' and plural of 'heavens'.

In Hebrew, a few words that indicate an action establishing a new relationship between ''two'' persons, are indicated by the plural form only: אירוסין (engagement), נישואין (marriage), קידושין (religious marriage), גירושין (divorce), פיטורין (dismissal), and likewise.

See also

* Classifier (linguistics)
* Defective verb
* English plurals
* Mass noun
* Singulative number
* Synesis
* Wiktionary lists of ''pluralia tantum''

Notes and references

{{Authority control

Grammar
Latin words and phrases
Grammatical number

is:Fleirtala