Singulative number

Welsh has two systems of grammatical number, singular–plural and collective–singulative. Since the loss of the noun inflection system of earlier Celtic, plurals have become unpredictable and can be formed in several ways: by adding a suffix to the end of the word (most commonly -au), as in tad "father" and tadau "fathers", through vowel mutation, as in bachgen "boy" and bechgyn "boys", or through a combination of the two, as in chwaer "sister" and chwiorydd "sisters". Other nouns take the singulative suffixes -yn (for masculine nouns) or -en (for feminine nouns). Most nouns which inflect according to this system designate objects that are frequently found in groups, for example adar "birds/flock of birds", aderyn "bird"; mefus "a bed of strawberries", mefusen "a strawberry"; plant "children", plentyn "a child"; and coed "forest", coeden "a tree". Still other nouns use suffixes for both singular and plural forms (e.g. merlen "a pony", merlod "ponies", the unsuffixed *merl does not exist); these are similar to nouns formed from other categories of words (e.g. cardod "charity" gives rise to cardotyn "a beggar" and cardotwyr "beggars").

A collective form, such as the Welsh moch "pigs" is more basic than the singular form (mochyn "a pig"). It is generally the collective form which is used as an adjectival modifier, e.g. cig moch ("pig meat", "pork"). The collective form is therefore similar in many respects to an English mass noun such as "rice", which in fact refers to a collection of items which are logically countable. However, English has no productive process of forming singulative nouns (just phrases such as "a grain of rice"). Therefore, English cannot be said to have singulative number.

Singulatives are featured in some Semitic and Slavic languages.[2]

In Arabic grammar, the singulative is called اسم الوحدة, "noun of unity". It is formed by the suffixes ة -a(t) and ي -ī. The former applies to animals, plants, and inanimate objects,[3] e.g. قمح qamḥ "wheat", قمحه qamḥa(t) "a grain of wheat"; شجر shajar 'trees', شجرة shajara(t) 'a tree'; بقر baqar 'cattle'; بقرة baqara(t) 'a cow'. The latter suffix applies to sentient beings, e.g. جن jinn (collective), جني jinnī (singulative); زنج zinj 'black African people', زنجى zinjī 'a black African person'. In some cases, the singulative has a further plural indicating a collection of the singular units, which may be broken (e.g. e.g., جند jund 'army', جندي jundī 'a soldier', جنود junūd 'soldiers') or regular (e.g. عسكر `askar 'army, military', عسكري `askarī 'a soldier, private, or enlisted man', عسكريون `askarīyūn 'soldiers, privates, enlisted men').

In East Slavic languages, which are basically of singular–plural system, the singular suffix -ин- ('-in-', Russian', -yn-', Ukrainian), resp. '-ін- '('-in-', Belarusian) performs the singulative function for collective nouns.[2] Russian: gorokh (peas in mass) vs. goroshina (a single pea). Ukrainian: пісок/pisok (sand) vs. піщина/pischyna (grain of sand).[2] Belarusian: бульба (potatoes in mass, e.g. as a crop or as a species) vs. бульбіна (one potato tuber). Notice the affix '-a' in all these examples, which indicates the feminine form. Notice also that plural forms may be derived from these singulatives in a regular way: goroshina->goroshiny (several peas), etc.

In both East Slavic and Arabic, the singulative form always takes on the feminine gender.

Singulative markers are found throughout the Nilo-Saharan languages. Majang, for example, has collective ŋɛɛti 'lice', singulative ŋɛɛti-n 'louse'. (Bender 1983:124).

In Dutch, singulative forms of collective nouns are occasionally made by diminutives: snoep "sweets, candy" → snoepje "sweet, piece of candy". These singulatives can be pluralized like most other nouns: snoepjes "several sweets, pieces of candy".