Dual grammatical number
Dual is the grammatical number used for two referents.
Relatively few languages have the dual number. Most have no number or only singular and plural.
In some languages, in addition to the singular and plural there is also a dual, which is used when exactly two people or things are meant. The plural in these languages is used only for groups greater than two.
Slovenian uses the dual number in full, as does Inuktitut. Sorbian, the Slavic language of a very small minority in Germany, also uses the dual number. The Greek language used in the Homeric texts, the Iliad and Odyssey, has some use of the dual. It is now obsolete in Lithuanian. Among living languages, modern standard Arabic uses dual number. Hebrew has some forms of dual, largely for measurements of time, parts of the body and things that come in pairs, such as švu`ayim (two weeks), `eynayim (eyes), šinayim (teeth, even all 32), and mišqafayim (eyeglasses). Akkadian had a dual number, though its use was confined to standard phrases like "two hands", "two eyes", and "two arms". Polish had dual in normal use in its earliest forms. Today only some objects that come in pairs like "two hands", "two eyes", "two ears" (but not "two legs" or "two arms") use it -- both plural and dual form for them is correct.
Sanskrit also possesses a dual number, with specific (although fewer) inflections for verbs and nouns. Some Polynesian languages, including Niuean and Tongan, possess a dual number for pronouns but not for nouns (indeed, they tend not to mark nouns for number at all).
See also grammatical number, trial grammatical number.
Languages with dual include:
Grammar | Language | Linguistics
