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A specific type of plurality in arabic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

It is an inherent feature of the adjectives ‘many’ (‘much’) and ‘few’ that they qualify nominal concepts implying ‘plurality’ so that the individuality of the units of which the entities underlying the specific nominal concepts are composed is clearly conspicuous: ‘Many (or: few) men (or: people)’, designating the plurality of the concept ‘man’; ‘much money’, designating the plurality of the concept' coin' (or: ‘bank-note’); ‘a (great) many clergy’, designating the plurality of the concept ‘clergyman’; etc. Such a semantic type, in which the epithets ‘many (much)’, ‘few’ are used, exists beside a semantic type of a related sense, as exemplified by the following instances: ‘a large mass (or: number, or: group) (of men, people, soldiers, etc.)’; ‘a small amount (of money)’; etc.

Type
Notes and Communications
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1978

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