May I have your number

The Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages and … English(!) don’t don’t mess around: number is indicated by everything possible: the DDP, the verb, and by the predicate noun (when present), as in English This_sg is_sg easy. Those_pl are_pl my parents_pl.

Latvian, Gujurati, and Bengali belong here also but they differ in that the verbs in these constructions are fixed 3sg–they don’t show number.

Putting pressure on the verb

In Frisian, Dutch, German, Icelandic, and the Slavic languages the DDP remains fixed or constant (C), while just the verb and the predicate noun shows number. (Note Russian and Ukrainian drop the present tense of the verb ‘to be’ but plural number is marked in the non-present tenses, e.g. Eto_C byli_pl moi roditeli_pl. [this were my parents] “Those were my parents.”)

The Romance languages also fit in this “Focus on the Verb” category, but they differ from the preceding in that they do not use an overt DDP. Demonstrative pronouns add specificity to the sense: Spanish Éste es fácil. [this+one is easy]. As above, the verb carries number information.

The verb can’t handle the pressure

Except for Icelandic, the Scandinavian languages have fixed/constant DDPs that do not express number, which is, however, expressed by the predicate noun alone (probably because in these languages verbs do not inflect for number anyway).

Celtic, Greek and Armenian fit here as well, only they don’t employ an overt DDP at all. Note that Irish tá ‘is’ is used with adjectives, while is ‘is’ is used to identify permanent objects.

Renegade French

French stands out among the mIE languages in that it alone has evolved a neutral DDP that simply stands for the referent without reference to its number. Unlike other neutral DDPs (such as those seen in Scandinavian languages) French ce ‘this/those’ has no other purpose than to introduce an object into the discourse.

A ‘Hi Native’ app user pointed out three uses of demonstrative pronouns in Portuguese: 

É FÁCIL. Generic statement, without pointing to an object. “Making a cake is easy.”

ISTO É FÁCIL. Points to something the speaker is holding or to the future. “Hold this: it’s easy.”

ISSO É FÁCIL. Refers back to something already said or close to the listener. “Cleaning the house? That’s easy.”

The words for ‘parents’ in the Indo-Aryan languages are charmingly direct, e.g. Hindi mātā-pitā, literally ‘mother-father’. Persian, too, has formal mādar-pedar. Other mIE languages focus on begetting, e.g. Polish rodzice (<*rod- beget, generate), English parents (< Latin parire ‘bear, give birth’.)

Agreement occurs between two words in a sentence or phrase. Some of the grammatical features of one word (usually a noun) are repeated in another word. For example, if a noun is plural then words modifying the noun will also have plural inflection, thus making obvious which noun is being modified, even if the noun isn’t nearby. Verbs also agree (suggesting at some level that verbs are modifiers also): Those_pl books_pl are_pl interesting. (In some languages even ‘interesting’ in that sentence would be marked plural.) Sometimes the agreement is obvious in the repetition of endings, as Russian kniga byla ‘a book was’.

Deictic refers to the act of pointing something out, or directing attention to something. It comes from the ancient Greek word deiktikos ‘able to show’: I want to buy that one.

Dummy demonstrative pronouns (DDP) are also called presentational pronouns, variously referred to as ’empty’, ‘indefinite’, or ‘neutral’. They serve to identify, define or point out an object. They differ from regular demontrative pronouns in that they do not carry any gender markings. They carry no meaning beyond indicating proximity in some languages. They usually occur in the subject position, though they are not subjects themselves. In Those are my parents. ‘parents’ is the subject.

Gender is a category assigned to nouns. It sometimes matches real world male, female or neuter objects and so the possible genders are masculine, feminine and neuter. In some Scandinavian languages masculine and feminine have merged into a ‘common’ gender. In most languages the gender of a noun is arbitrary. For example French table ‘table’ is feminine while Italian tavalo is masculine.

Predicate noun is a noun that falls after a stative verb such as to be, remain, become: It became a problem. These are also called predicate nominals. ‘Predicate’ means ‘having to do with the verb.’ Note that stative verbs normally do not occur alone: *It became.

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