pluralnominal

Pluralnominal is a term used in linguistic theory to describe nominal expressions that bear plural morphology or appearance in a given language but are interpreted semantically as a single unit or as a unitary entity rather than as a straightforward plural set. In practice, pluralnominals may show a disconnect between form and meaning: the noun has plural markings while the referent is conceived as a single object, a cohesive whole, or a grouped entity treated as one unit in discourse.

Morphology and syntax work patterns for pluralnominals can vary cross-linguistically. They commonly involve plural inflection on the noun while determiners, numerals, and predicate agreement may align with a singular or collective interpretation. Some languages permit plural agreement with plural-marked nominals only in distributive readings, while others allow a single-unit reading to govern agreement across the noun phrase.

Semantically, pluralnominals encode information about distribution, collection, or unitization without necessarily implying multiplicity of referents. They often interact with readings such as distributive vs. collective, mass vs. count, and can participate in idiomatic or fixed expressions where plural form does not map directly onto plural referents.

Relation to related concepts includes connections to pluralia tantum, mass nouns, and collective nouns, as well as broader study of nominal number and agreement phenomena. Pluralnominal analyses contribute to typological surveys of how languages encode number on nouns and how form-meaning mappings can diverge within noun phrase structure.