Contenu
Welsh has intriguing, yet relatively neglected grammatical number phenomena--special forms of nouns used when referring to body parts that form natural pairs, singulative forms based on plural and mass nouns, and mass nouns taking plural agreement. Grammatical Number in Welsh: Diachrony and Typology is the first monograph-length treatment of grammatical number in Welsh. Integrating diachronic and typological perspectives, this book comprises major contributions to the study of grammatical number based on a new corpus collected from Middle Welsh texts and a reassessment of data from Old and Modern Welsh.
Author Silva Nurmio approaches number in Welsh from a cross-linguistic perspective, providing data that can be used by Welsh linguists, Celticists, and non-specialized linguists with no previous knowledge of the language. This monograph offers new answers to whether certain noun types are number categories and explores the significance of literary register and genre to the study of older language stages. Contributions to the study of grammatical number, including new findings on minor numbers and the loss of dual number, will prove to be of interest to all linguists.