nounnumbercase

Noun-number-case is a term used in linguistics to describe how some languages encode information about grammatical number and grammatical case on nouns. Number refers to distinctions such as singular and plural, and, in some languages, dual. Case concerns the noun’s syntactic role, such as nominative or accusative. In this concept, these dimensions can be represented together either as a single fused morphological form or as a compact annotation that combines the two features into one label.

Across languages, the standard pattern is to mark number and case with separate inflectional endings or internal stem changes. In languages with richer case systems, however, the same ending may signal both number and case, producing forms that encode a combined noun-number-case value. Classical Indo-European languages like Latin, as well as other languages with strong inflection, illustrate how a single surface form can carry multiple grammatical meanings through its ending. The exact realization depends on the language’s morphology and declension class.

In linguistic annotation and natural language processing, noun-number-case can be used as a compact tag in experimental schemes or typological surveys. In mainstream annotation frameworks, number and case are typically treated as separate features (for example Number=Sing|Case=Nom). A fused noun-number-case label can simplify analysis in some contexts but may reduce cross-language comparability.

Challenges include non-concatenative morphologies, suppletion, and languages that distribute number and case across different parts of speech or clitics. When comparing languages, researchers must account for differences in what counts as a case or a number distinction and how they combine in noun forms. See also morphology, grammatical number, grammatical case, and inflection.