Paucalformen

Paucalformen, or paucal forms, are grammatical forms used to mark a paucal number—the category for a small, finite number of referents, typically more than one but fewer than many. The term paucal comes from Latin paucus, “few.” In languages that have a paucal, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and sometimes verbs or numerals may change form when the reference group is considered small, often around three or four items; the exact range varies by language. Some systems also merge paucal with the plural or use a dedicated paucal marker in the morphology.

The distribution of paucal forms across the world’s languages is uneven. They are documented in a minority of linguistic systems, particularly among languages with rich nominal morphology. In many languages with paucal forms, the marking appears directly on the noun or pronoun, and may also appear on associated adjectives or verbal agreement. Morphological realisations can include suffixes, infixes, prefixes, or adjustments to articles or demonstratives. The functional purpose of paucal forms is to provide a precise cue about a small quantity without resorting to a full plural.

In use, paucal forms help distinguish, for example, three or four items from five or more, and from a single item. They can interact with case, gender, and other grammatical categories in language-specific ways. Because paucal forms vary widely, their exact distribution and surface form are determined by the grammar of the individual language and are not uniform across languages.