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Collective Nouns in Welsh: A Noun Category or a Plural Allomorph?
Author(s) -
Nurmio Silva
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/1467-968x.12086
Subject(s) - plural , allomorph , noun , linguistics , welsh , ambiguity , proper noun , meaning (existential) , argument (complex analysis) , mathematics , philosophy , morpheme , epistemology , biochemistry , chemistry
A noun category in Welsh which has a shorter form for a collection/plural meaning and a suffixed singulative for a single instance has been described in the literature as both a number category and a plural allomorph, often with terminological ambiguity and blurring of boundaries between different noun types. This paper is an investigation of the features of these nouns using a number of theoretical approaches which cumulatively support the argument that collective can be considered a full number category in Welsh.