Numerusmarkierung

Numerusmarkierung, in linguistics, refers to the grammatical marking of number, distinguishing singular and plural, and in some languages dual or paucal forms. It affects nouns, pronouns, adjectives, determiners, and verbs, signaling how many entities are involved in a clause.

It can be expressed morphologically on nouns (suffixes or internal changes) or via articles and demonstratives that carry number; adjectives and determiners typically agree in number with the noun; verbs may show subject agreement in number. Some languages also have zero marking, where number is not overtly marked on a word, and the number is inferred from context or other words.

Examples: German has clear numerusmarkierung. Singular: der Mann; plural: die Männer. Adjectives and determiners agree: der gute Mann vs die guten Männer. Verbs agree with subject: er geht vs sie gehen. Other languages show additional possibilities, such as a dual system in Arabic or Hebrew, or paucal numbers in some Austronesian and Berber languages. Some languages, like Mandarin Chinese, have little or no grammatical number, relying on context and quantifiers instead.

Numerusmarkierung interacts with other grammatical systems, especially case and definiteness, and is a key component of agreement in syntax. It varies widely across languages, from rich, multi-number systems to minimal or zero-number systems.