Collective noun

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Not to be confused with
collective numeral
.
Grammatical features
Related to nouns
Related to verbs
General features
Syntax relationships
Semantics
Phenomena

In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing.[citation needed] For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people ("a group of people"), or dogs ("a group of dogs"), or objects ("a group of stones").

Some collective nouns are specific to one kind of thing, especially terms of venery, which identify groups of specific animals. For example, "pride" as a term of venery always refers to lions, never to dogs or cows. Other examples come from popular culture such as a group of owls, which is called a "parliament".[1]

Different forms of English handle verb agreement with collective count nouns differently. For example, users of British English generally accept that collective nouns take either singular or plural verb forms depending on context and the metonymic shift that it implies.

Derivation

Morphological derivation accounts for many collective words and various languages have common affixes for denoting collective nouns. Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations.

Affixes

Proto-Indo-European

Early Proto-Indo-European used the suffix *eh₂ to form collective nouns, which evolved into the Latin neuter plural ending -a, as in "datum/data". Late Proto-Indo-European used the ending *t, which evolved into the English ending -th, as in "young/youth".

English

The English endings -age and -ade often signify a collective. Sometimes, the relationship is easily recognizable: baggage, drainage, blockade. Though the

coin, "signage
".

German

neuter gender
:

There are also several endings that can be used to create collectives, such as "welt" and "masse".

Dutch

Dutch has a similar pattern but sometimes uses the (unproductive) circumfix ge- -te:[2]

  • berg 'mountain' > gebergte 'mountain range'
  • been 'bone' > gebeente 'skeleton'
  • vogel 'bird' > gevogelte 'poultry'
  • blad 'leaf' > gebladerte 'foliage'

Swedish

The following Swedish example has different words in the collective form and in the individual form:

  • An individual mosquito is a mygga (plural: myggor), but mosquitos as a collective is mygg.

Esperanto

Esperanto uses the collective infix -ar- to produce a large number of derived words:

  • monto 'mountain' > montaro 'mountain range'
  • birdo 'bird' > birdaro 'flock'
  • arbo 'tree' > arbaro 'forest'
  • ŝipo 'ship' > ŝiparo 'fleet'
  • manĝilo 'eating utensil' > manĝilaro 'silverware', 'cutlery'

Metonymic merging of grammatical number

Main articles: Synesis and Plurale tantum

Two examples of collective nouns are "team" and "government", which are both words referring to groups of (usually) people. Both "team" and "government" are countable nouns (consider: "one team", "two teams", "most teams"; "one government", "two governments", "many governments").

Agreement in different forms of English

Main article: American and British English grammatical differences § Subject-verb agreement

Confusion often stems from the way that different forms of English handle

plural verb forms are often used in British English with the singular forms of these countable nouns (e.g., "The team have finished the project."). Conversely, in the English language as a whole, singular verb forms can often be used with nouns ending in "-s" that were once considered plural (e.g., "Physics is my favorite academic subject"). This apparent "number mismatch" is a natural and logical feature of human language, and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic
shift in the concepts underlying the words.

In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the

notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals. That is also the British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts (e.g., "Newcastle
have won the competition.").

In

American Telephone & Telegraph is a telecommunications
company in North America". Such phrases might look plural, but they are not.

Examples of metonymic shift

A good example of such a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction (which exclusively takes place in British English) is the following sentence: "The team have finished the project." In that sentence, the underlying thought is of the individual members of the team working together to finish the project. Their accomplishment is collective, and the emphasis is not on their individual identities, but they are still discrete individuals; the word choice "team have" manages to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously. Collective nouns that have a singular form but take a plural verb form are called collective plurals. An example of such a metonymic shift in the plural-to-singular direction is the following sentence: "Mathematics is my favorite academic subject". The word "mathematics" may have originally been plural in concept, referring to mathematic endeavors, but metonymic shift (the shift in concept from "the endeavors" to "the whole set of endeavors") produced the usage of "mathematics" as a singular entity taking singular verb forms. (A true mass-noun sense of "mathematics" followed naturally.)

Nominally singular pronouns can be collective nouns taking plural verb forms, according to the same rules that apply to other collective nouns. For example, it is correct usage in both British English and American English usage to say: "None are so fallible as those who are sure they're right." In that case, the plural verb is used because the context for "none" suggests more than one thing or person.[3] This also applies to the use of an adjective as a collective noun: "The British are coming!"; "The poor will always be with you."

Other examples include:

This does not, however, affect the tense later in the sentence:

Abbreviations provide other "exceptions" in American usage concerning plurals:

  • "Runs Batted In" becomes "RBIs". "Smith had 10 RBIs in the last three games."[4]
  • "Revised Statutes Annotated" or RSAs. "The RSAs contain our laws."

When only the name is plural but not the object, place, or person:

Terms of venery

Further information: List of animal names

The tradition of using "terms of venery" or "nouns of assembly", collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals, stems from an

France. It was marked by an extensive proliferation of specialist vocabulary, applying different names to the same feature in different animals. The elements can be shown to have already been part of French and English hunting terminology by the beginning of the 14th century. In the course of the 14th century, it became a courtly fashion to extend the vocabulary, and by the 15th century, the tendency had reached exaggerated and even satirical proportions. Other synonyms for "terms of venery" include "company nouns," "gatherations," and "agminals."[5]

Gaston Phoebus (14th century) had five terms for droppings of animals, which were extended to seven in the Master of the Game (early 15th century). The focus on collective terms for groups of animals emerged in the later 15th century. Thus, a list of collective nouns in Egerton MS 1995, dated to c. 1452 under the heading of "termis of venery &c.", extends to 70 items,[7] and the list in the Book of Saint Albans (1486) runs to 164 items,[8] many of which, even though introduced by "the compaynys of beestys and fowlys", relate not to venery but to human groups and professions and are clearly humorous, such as "a Doctryne of doctoris", "a Sentence of Juges", "a Fightyng of beggers", "an uncredibilite of Cocoldis", "a Melody of harpers", "a Gagle of women", "a Disworship of Scottis", etc.[9][10]

The Book of Saint Albans became very popular during the 16th century and was reprinted frequently. Gervase Markham edited and commented on the list in his The Gentleman's Academie, in 1595. The book's popularity had the effect of perpetuating many of these terms as part of the Standard English lexicon even if they were originally meant to be humorous and have long ceased to have any practical application.[11][12]

Even in their original context of medieval venery, the terms were of the nature of kennings, intended as a mark of erudition of the gentlemen able to use them correctly rather than for practical communication.[13] The popularity of the terms in the modern period has resulted in the addition of numerous lighthearted, humorous or facetious[14] collective nouns.

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Rhodes, Chloe (19 September 2014). "Ten of the best collective nouns". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  2. ^ Booij, Geert (2002). The Morphology of Dutch. Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ Strunk & White, The Elements of Style (4th ed., 2000), p. 10.
  4. ISBN 978-0-19-538275-4
    .
  5. ISBN 978-90-04-48314-9
    .
  6. ^ William Sayers, "Animal vocalization and human polyglossia in Walter of Bibbesworth's 13th-century domestic treatise in Anglo-Norman French" in Sign System Studies (Tartu, 2009) pp. 173–187
  7. ISBN 978-3-11-081860-4
    , p. xli.
  8. Book of St Albans, written by Juliana Berners
    , a 15th-Century Benedictine prioress from England, that they were recorded extensively. Also known by the title The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms, Berners' 1486 publication of this gentlemen's catalogue of wildlife and hunting included 165 collective nouns for animal species, and is said to make her one of the earliest female authors writing in the English language.

    Yet, the only documented evidence of this woman's existence is the attribution 'Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng', which appeared in the original edition. >>

    says, in part, "Berners' 1486 publication of this gentlemen's catalogue of wildlife and hunting included 165 collective nouns for animal species".
  9. ^ 1901 facsimile reprint, E. Stock, London (pp. 115–117).
  10. ^ Transactions of the Philological Society, Volume 26, Issue 3, pp. 79–175, August 1909.
  11. ISBN 0-415-05102-9
    . Retrieved 2011-04-04.
  12. ^ Alkemade et al. (eds), Linguistic Studies Offered to Berthe Siertsema (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1980), pp. 181-93
  13. ISBN 978-0140170962
    .
  14. ISBN 0-87207-138-3
    .

External links

Look up Appendix:Glossary of collective nouns by subject or Appendix:Collective nouns in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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