Dual

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Dual is a grammatical number referring to exactly two referents. Duals only exist in languages that also have a singular and plural number. A number between these that can sometimes refer to more than two referents is called a paucal.

As with other number distinctions, a language can have a systematic dual category extending to all pronouns, nouns, possession, verbal conjugation etc, or only a subset of these. The subset in question can be smaller than the subset in which a distinction between singular and plural is made, for example distinguishing dual only in pronouns.

Examples of languages with dual number include Old English and North Sámi.

This article is part of a series on Grammar and Syntax. (Click to View) Grammar: Accusative absolute * Animacy Hierarchy * Aspect * Degrees of volition * Dual * Fluid-S * Mood * Nouns * Number * Person * Pro-Drop * Pronouns * Suffixaufnahme * Tense * Word order * Basic word order Syntax: Morphology * Morphological type * Morphosyntactic alignment * Nominative absolute * OSV * OVS * SOV * SVO * VOS * VSO