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In other languages, there is a number (dual) that deals with cases like this. It's been dropping from most languages where it's used. In Russian it's mostly gon
by amaccuish 8y ago
In other languages, there is a number (dual) that deals with cases like this. It's been dropping from most languages where it's used. In Russian it's mostly gone, but alot of the endings remain.
Also lot's of languages when borrowing from English do away with the plural if it's obvious. Like in french, a pair of jeans is just un jean, singular.
- gizmo686 8y agoDual doesn't really help in this case. In a dual system, we would have something like: 1 pant 2 pantx 3+ pants The problem with the words op is describing is that they should, semantically, belong to the category of 1 object, but morphologically (and syntactically) belong to the category of not-1 object. Adding a separate category for 2 objects does not address this.
- SilasX 8y agoEnglish has some vestiges of the grammatical dual, in terms of having a special word for the case of two: both vs all, either vs any, neither vs none. (And for real pedants, between vs among.)