Talk:Nullar
I'm not a grammarian, and I'm not a native English speaker, but I think you Enlish can say both:
- I have no cars (using plural).
- I have no car (using singular).
Is singular poor English here? Try also with the word "cigarette" insted of "car".
It seems to me the plural is the only choice when the question is how many X'es you have, where as the singular can be used when the important thing is whether you have any X'es at all.
--Niels Ø 11:25, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
- I'd say you're right about the use of singular and plural here, though it would be more natural to say "I don't have any cars" and "I don't have a car". "I have no cars" would have to be emphatic to sound natural. e.g. "I have no cars". Damezi 00:31, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Could we have an exampel for the use of nullar number in Latvian, please? Salleman 08:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Merger proposal[edit]
I am proposing a merger of plural, nullar, trial (grammatical number), paucal, collective noun and singulative with grammatical number. Here are my reasons:
- Most of those other entries have very little in them. They could easily become sections, or even paragraphs in 'grammatical number';
- One exception is the plural entry, which does contain quite a bit, but a lot of what it has could just as well be in a general entry about 'grammatical number';
- I think that some of what is currently in the plural article might be used to improve the quality of the 'grammatical number' article;
A related page which is probably best left separate is the one on the dual number, which seems too large to merge with 'grammatical number'. FilipeS 14:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)