flertals

Flertals refers to the grammatical category of number that marks more than one of a noun, pronoun, adjective, or sometimes a verb. In languages that employ flertals, the form used for plural can be built in various ways and may interact with other grammatical features such as case, gender, or definiteness. The term flertals is used in some linguistic traditions to describe the plural form system, and in certain languages the word for “plural” resembles flertal or flertall; in English, the concept is simply called the plural.

Morphology of flertals varies widely. Plural marking can be suffixal (for example, English nouns typically add a suffix such as -s or -es), involve internal vowel changes (like man to men), or be formed through entirely separate lexical words in analytic languages. Some languages have zero plural markers, relying on context or determiners to convey number. Others use irregular or suppletive plurals, and a few languages distinguish dual or trial numbers in addition to plural.

Agreement and syntax often accompany flertals. Nouns and their modifiers may agree in number, determiners may change to reflect plurality, and verbs can show subject–verb agreement in number, especially in more synthetic languages. In many languages, the plural system interacts with case endings and word order to signal who is involved and how they relate in a sentence.

Cross-linguistic variation is extensive. Some languages have robust and highly productive plural paradigms; others have limited or no morphological plural, relying on context. Irregular plurals and historical sound changes also feature in the study of flertals. See also number (linguistics), noun phrase, and grammatical agreement.