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, an animal or a 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 that refer to singular nouns, but not demonstrative determiners of singular or plural nouns (e.g. այս գիրքը/գրքերը “this/these book/books”; այդ գիրքը/գրքերը “that/those book/books (medial)”, այն գիրքը/գրքերը “that/those book/books”), are also marked with this feature.
- 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. There are many endings to mark the plurality of the word in Middle Armenian, such as -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”
Demonstrative pronouns that refer to plural nouns, but not demonstrative determiners of singular or plural nouns (e.g. այս գիրքը/գրքերը “this/these book/books”; այդ գիրքը/գրքերը “that/those book/books (medial)”, այն գիրքը/գրքերը “that/those book/books”), are also marked with this feature.
- սոքա/sok’a “these”
- դոքա/dok’a “those (medial)”
- նոքա/nok’a “those”
- այնոք/aynok’ “those”
Ptan: plurale tantum
Some geographical or biological/botanical names appear only in the plural form even though they denote one thing (semantic singular). We mark these proper nouns 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”
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. Although in Armenian they are able to form plural. In practice the plural form means “several sorts of” or “several packages of”. We mark these forms as Plur.
Examples:
- դահութիւն/dahowt’iwn “old age”
- խիփ/xip’ “shame, reverence”
- պօղպատ/pòġpat “steel”
Number in other languages: [ab] [arr] [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] [orv] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl] [xmf]