Grammatical aspect denoting that a verb's action or participants is/are plural
Grammatical features
Related to nouns
Animacy
Case
Dative construction
Dative shift
Quirky subject
Nominative
Comitative
Instrumental
Classifier
Measure word
Construct state
Countability
Count noun
Mass noun
Collective noun
Definiteness
Gender
Genitive construction
Possession
Suffixaufnahme (case stacking)
Noun class
Number
Singular
Dual
Plural
Singulative-Collective-Plurative
Specificity
Universal grinder
Related to verbs
Associated motion
Clusivity
Conjugation
Evidentiality
Modality
Person
Telicity
Mirativity
Tense–aspect–mood
Grammatical aspect
Lexical aspect (Aktionsart)
Mood
Tense
Voice
General features
Affect
Boundedness
Comparison (degree)
Egophoricity
Pluractionality (verbal number)
Honorifics (politeness)
Polarity
Reciprocity
Reflexive pronoun
Reflexive verb
Syntax relationships
Argument
Transitivity
Valency
Branching
Serial verb construction
Traditional grammar
Predicate
Subject
Object
Adjunct
Predicative
Semantics
Contrast
Mirativity
Thematic relation
Agent
Patient
Topic and Comment
Focus
Volition
Veridicality
Phenomena
Agreement
Polypersonal agreement
Declension
Empty category
Incorporation
Inflection
Markedness
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In linguistics, pluractionality,[1] or verbal number, if not used in its aspectual sense, is a grammatical aspect that indicates that the action or participants of a verb is, or are, plural. This differs from frequentative or iterative aspects in that the latter have no implication for the number of participants of the verb.
Often a pluractional transitive verb indicates that the object is plural, whereas in a pluractional intransitive verb the subject is plural. This is sometimes taken as an element of ergativity in the language. However, the essence of pluractionality is that the action of the verb is plural, whether because several people perform the action, it is performed on several objects, or it is performed several times. The exact interpretation may depend on the semantics of the verb as well as the context in which it is used. The lack of verbal number does not generally mean that the action and participants are singular, but rather that there is no particularly notable plurality; thus it may be better described as paucal vs. multiple rather than singular vs. plural.
Although English does not have verbal number as a grammatical device, many English verbs such as stampede and massacre are used when one of the participants involves a large number. English also has a number of verbs (often ending in -le, such as nibble) which indicate repetitive actions, and this is similar to some types of grammatically-marked pluractionality in other languages.
^Greenberg, Yael (2010). "Event Internal Pluractionality in Modern Hebrew: A Semantic Analysis of One Verbal Reduplication Pattern". Brill's Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics. 2: 119–164. doi:10.1163/187666310X12688137960786.
places. Pluractionality is not uncommon in New Guinea. The Koiarian language Barai has suppletive forms: The Slavic verb can express pluractionality as part...
its grammar, allowing for valency, tense, mood, aspect, person and pluractionality to be expressed on it through a variety of suffixes. The main distinction...
telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, animacy, associativity, pluractionality, and reciprocity. Verbs may also be affected by agreement, polypersonal...
aspect (abbreviated ITER), also called "semelfactive", "event-internal pluractionality", or "multiplicative", is a grammatical aspect described by some authors...
their arguments, some verbs can take only singular arguments and some (pluractional) verbs can only take non-singular arguments. For example, mur, tesi and...
of the verb is often used to derive forms showing repeated action (pluractionality), though it is unclear if this is an inherited feature or has been...
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