Number: number
| Values: | Coll | Plur | Ptan | Sing |
In Middle Armenian, Number is a feature of nouns and other parts of speech that mark agreement with nouns, i.e. personal pronouns and verbs.
Sing: singular number
A singular noun denotes one person, animal, or thing.
Examples:
- գրաստ/grast “beast of burden”
- մանուկ/manuk “child”
- ծառայ/çaṙay “servant”
- տուն/town “house”
Pronouns that refer to a single person, animal, or thing are also marked with this feature.
- Ես/es “I”
- իմ/im “my”
- դու/du “you”
- քո/k’o “your”
- ինք/ink’ “he/she/it”
- իւր(իր)/iwr(ir) “his/her/its”
Demonstrative pronouns referring to singular entities are marked with this feature, whereas demonstrative determiners are not, regardless of whether the modified noun is singular or plural (e.g. այս դեղս/ays deġs “this medicine”; այս դեղերն/ays deġern “these medicines” այդ երկիրն/ayd erkirn “that country (medial)”, այդ պռկունքդ/ayd pṙkownkʼd “those your lips”).
- սա/sa “this”
- դա/da “that (medial)”
- նա/na “that”
- այն/ayn “that, it”
Plur: plural number
A plural noun denotes several persons, animals or things. Middle Armenian has several plural suffixes, including -ք/k’, -եր/-er, -եար/-ear, -ան/-an, -նի/-ni, -տի/-ti, -վի/-vi, -վտի/-vti, -ստան/-stan, -ներ/ner etc.
Examples:
- գրաստնի/grastni “beasts of burden”
- մանկտի/mankti “children”
- ծառայք/çaṙayk’ “servants”
- տներ/tner “houses”
Pronouns that refer to several persons, animals or things are also marked with this feature.
- մեք/mek’ “we”
- մեր/mer “our”
- դուք/duk’ “you (pl.)”
- ձեր/jer “yours (pl.)”
- իրենք/irenk’ “they”
- իրենց (իրանց, իւրեանց, իւրենց)/irenc’ (iranc’, iwreanc’, iwrenc’) “their”
- սոքա/sok’a “these”
- դոքա/dok’a “those (medial)”
- նոքա/nok’a “those”
- այնոք/aynok’ “those”
Demonstrative pronouns referring to plural entities are marked with this feature, whereas demonstrative determiners are not, regardless of whether the modified noun is singular or plural (see above).
Coll: collective / mass / singulare tantum
Collective or mass or singulare tantum is a special case of singular. It applies to words that use grammatical singular to describe sets of objects, i.e. semantic plural. In Middle Armenian, the Coll number is used only with paired body parts and similar entities (primarily with monosyllabic nouns). Although these forms end in the Classical Armenian plural marker -ք/-k’, they refer collectively to all members of the natural set denoted by the noun, rather than expressing ordinary plural number. The ordinary plural of such nouns is often formed with a different plural marker, such as -վի/-vi, -նի/-ni, etc. In such cases, their lemma is given without the collective ending -ք/-k’, and the form is annotated as plural (Number=Plur).
Examples:
- ոտք/otkʼ “legs”
- աչք/ačkʼ “eyes”
- քովք/kʼovkʼ “sides, ribs”
- պինչք/pinčkʼ “nostrils”
Ptan: plurale tantum
Some geographical or biological/botanical names appear only in the plural form even though they denote one thing (semantic singular). These proper nouns are marked as Ptan (plurale tantum). Grammatically they behave like singulars, so Ptan is obviously the back-off value here.
Examples
- արծուիք/arçowik’ “ascites”
- երանք/erank’ “loins”
- մեղանք/meġank’ “wickedness”
Number in other languages: [ab] [arr] [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [bor] [cs] [ctn] [cy] [el] [en] [es] [ess] [eu] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gn] [gub] [hbo] [hu] [hy] [it] [ka] [ky] [myv] [naq] [oge] [orv] [pal] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl] [xmf]