Grammatical Number in English and Czech Nouns Master’S Diploma Thesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Radka Petrlíková

Grammatical Number in English and Czech Nouns Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.

2016

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc. for her guidance, patience and valuable advice.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Grammatical Number ...... 4 2.1 Number in English ...... 9 2.2 Number in Czech ...... 12 3. Countability ...... 15 3.1 Countability in English ...... 20 3.2 Countability in Czech ...... 30 4. Agreement ...... 36 5. Analysis of Uncountables ...... 39 5.1 Uncountables ...... 39 5.2 Hypothesis ...... 39 5.3 Method ...... 40 5.4 Corpus of Uncountables ...... 43 5.5 Results ...... 54 6. Conclusion ...... 70 Sources of Uncountable Nouns ...... 74 References ...... 76 Resumé ...... 80 Resumé ...... 82 1. Introduction

This thesis discusses the grammatical categories of number and countability. It compares the systems of classifying nouns according to these categories in English and Czech. It is especially focused on the differences in countability between English nouns and their Czech equivalents. Even though the thesis is especially concerned with countability, the title is Grammatical

Number in English and Czech Nouns, because some linguists do not treat countability as an independent category, and in some grammars it is discussed in chapters on number.

The grammatical number is discussed briefly. There are many sources dealing with number in various languages. Therefore I only give a brief overview of what grammatical numbers may exist in a language in general, which of them are relevant for English and Czech, and by what means they are indicated in each of the languages. In addition, some peculiarities of each language are mentioned, such as the irregular plurals or the residuals of the dual number.

The discussion of countability is more detailed, as there seems to be a greater variability among various sources. Many English grammar books present the traditional binary model of countables and uncountables. However, some recent grammars and linguistic articles challenge this model and show that many nouns may be both countable and uncountable, depending on a given context. In Czech the category of countability has only started to be mentioned in recent years. Traditional grammars only mention some peculiar groups of

1 nouns that are either only singular or only plural, when discussing the category of number.

A very brief chapter of this thesis describes the rules for agreement in number among sentence elements in English and Czech.

The second part of this thesis is an analysis of English uncountable nouns and their Czech equivalents. As Corbett (1994) says, there has already been done some research of uncountable fruit and vegetables in Slavonic languages (p. 204), Cummins (1991) presents his research in the field of Czech uncountable toponyms and Vavrušová (1984) selected all the uncountable nouns beginning with “d” and “v” that she found in an English dictionary, and tried to find their uncountable Czech equivalents. I collected my sample nouns from existing English grammars, in other words, I work with those examples of uncountable nouns that are most cited by linguists and therefore seem to be either the most common or the most interesting.

Countability may differ across languages, and therefore, what is countable in one language may be uncountable in another. The aim of this thesis is to find both countable and uncountable Czech equivalents to English uncountable nouns. This may be useful for teaching English to Czech learners, who sometimes try to use English uncountables countably, because their Czech equivalents are countable. Furthermore, the proportion of nouns that correspond in countability in the two languages, and those that do not, may show the extent to which the grammatical category of countability reflects the extra-linguistic reality, and to which it is arbitrary.

Finally, the possible differences among various varieties of English

(British, American, Canadian, Australian, etc.) are not taken into account in this thesis. The uncountable nouns analysed in the latter part of this thesis are uncountable at least in one of the varieties.

2. Grammatical Number

Number is a grammatical category which is expressed by specific morphological means and reflexes semantic contents of a given word to some extent. However, the relation between grammatical number and extra-linguistic reality is disputable. According to Erhart (2001), number is related to the semantic category of quantity (p. 64). Komárek (1986) explains that its three functions are reflective, cognitive and structure-making (p. 42). Dušková (1994) says that it is a semantic category as well as a grammatical one (p.36). Even though grammatical number does often reflect extra-linguistic reality, it is not always that simple. Štícha (2013) argues that number has become grammaticalized and rather abstract. He maintains that the semantic opposition of singularity and plurality is not the same as the simple quantitative opposition of one object and more than one (p. 302). Čechová (1976) strictly distinguishes between the grammatical number of a given word and its semantic meaning. In her research, she found out that many Czech basic school pupils make mistakes in determining grammatical number of nouns because they confuse grammatical number with the actual quantity of the objects to which the nouns refer, which is a flaw that should be avoided (pp. 72-82). Therefore we can speak about a difference between notional and grammatical number. As

Humphreys and Bock (2005) explain, “Notional number is the numerosity of the subject’s referent in the speaker’s mental model, and grammatical number is the conventional linguistic number of the subject (head) noun” (p. 689). An example of such a discord between grammatical number and the number of objects referred to are collective nouns, which are discussed later in this thesis.

An argument speaking for number’s ability to reflect extra-linguistic reality is the fact that it exists in various languages, which is not true of some other grammatical categories which are specific only to a limited number of languages. There is a need to express the quantity of referents of a given word even in those languages where the category of number does not exist, in such cases it is expressed lexically, for example by numerals. Erhart (2001) says:

“Jestliže jsou jisté kvantitativní vztahy označovány přímo na slovech označujících substance (pomocí afixů), můžeme v daném jazyce mluvit o gramatické kategorii čís1a” [“If certain quantitative relations are marked directly on words referring to substances (by means of affixes) we can speak about the grammatical category of number in a given language”](p. 64). However, as

Corbett (1994) explains, “the expression of grammatical number varies from relative simplicity in some languages to great complexity in others” (p. 201). He gives a comprehensive overview of possible typological classification of number.

Corbett’s (1994) first division of number is in nominal and verbal. The difference between them is in what they quantify, not in where they are marked. “Nominal number quantifies individuals, while verbal number quantifies events” (p. 202). In both English and Czech only the nominal number is expressed. It is marked on both noun phrases and verbs. Another possible distinction of number is between obligatory and optional number (p. 203). As an example of an obligatory number Corbett (1994) names the plural number in

Slavonic languages. He says that if a countable noun refers to more than one object, the plural must be used. In contrast, the Slovene dual number is an

5 example of an optional number. The speaker may choose between the dual and the plural number when referring to two objects. (p. 203)

Finally, an important distinction is in what quantity of objects the number reflexes. In both English and Czech, there is only the distinction between singular, usually referring to one item, and plural, usually referring to more than one. There used to be the dual number, referring to two items, in both languages, but it is not used anymore. Erhart (2001) argues that the position of dual number was not equal to the one of singular and plural number, especially because the means of expressing the dual number were limited, and plural number was used instead, and because the dual has disappeared from many languages where it used to exist (p. 65). Nonetheless, it left some traces in both English and Czech, these are discussed later, separately for each language.

In the opposition of the singular and the plural number, the singular is the unmarked one, referring sometimes to either one or more objects, and the plural is marked. However, Corbett (1994) suggests that there may be some exceptions to this rule. He demonstrates it on these examples from Russian:

The former pair slovo – slovesa (word – words) changed into slovo – slova, which means that the plural form was adjusted to the singular, because the singular is more common, however, the pair kolo – kolesa (wheel – wheels) changed into koleso – kolesa, the singular form was adjusted to the plural, because the plural is more common, which may suggest that in this case the plural is the unmarked one (p. 207). Also Komárek (1986) points out that some

Czech nouns are usually used in plural and their singular form is rare and

6 marked. They usually denote objects that exist in pairs or groups, such as vlasy

(hair – plural in Czech), sourozenci (siblings), ponožky (socks) or sušenky

(biscuits) (pp. 50 – 51).

There are various means of expressing the number of a noun. Komárek

(1986) names these three possibilities: a set of singular and plural noun endings, special word classes such as numerals, and agreement (p. 43).

Problems with number may occur when translating from a language to another in which the grammatical number is different. Jacobson (1959) suggests that if translating, for example, from a language in which the dual number is used into a language where it is unknown, the problem may be solved by using lexical means, for example the numeral two, but when translating from a language where the dual number does not exist and the plural is used instead into a language where the dual is obligatory, in cases where it is not clear from the context whether the referents are two or more, the translator has to choose between the dual and the plural, and therefore one of the possibilities is lost in translation, or the translator has to find a way to explain that the referents are either two or more (p. 235).

The fact that grammatical number exists in a given language does not necessarily mean that it must be always expressed. As Corbett (1994) says, “In some languages number is restricted to a small subset of the nouns and pronouns, in others it is of greater importance” (p. 203). For example in

Japanese only nouns with animate referents can express grammatical number, other nouns are quantified by classifiers (Athanasopoulos, 2006, p. 91). This issue is connected to the grammatical category of countability, which is

7 discussed later in this thesis. The following two chapters are focused on grammatical number in English and Czech respectively.

2.1 Number in English

In contrast to Czech language which is highly inflectional, in English

“about the only inflectional categories that are expressed with any regularity on nouns are singular and plural” (Payne, 2011, p. 109).

The singular grammatical ending is zero in English. The regular plural ending is –s, it is voiceless in pronunciation when preceded by a voiceless consonant, and voiced when preceded by a voiced consonant or a vowel. There are, however, a few rules to keep when forming the regular plural of nouns. For example Belán (2007) lists the rules as follows: Nouns ending in –ch, -s, -sh, -x,

-z are pluralized with –es. If a common noun ends in a consonant + -y, the final

-y changes into –i and –es is added. There is no change in proper names of this type and only –s is added, the same applies for common nouns if the final –y is preceded by a vowel. Most nouns ending in –o are pluralized with –es. A few other such nouns may get either –es or –s ending. Only –s is added to these nouns if the final o is double, if the -o is preceded by a vowel, if the noun is shortened (e.g. photos), if it is a proper name, or a music terms from Italian.

(pp. 6-7)

There are some non-productive irregular plurals as well. Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002) sort them into two groups, native and borrowed. There are three common ways of forming the irregular plural of native nouns. First, there is a change of a vowel, such as in man – men, foot – feet. Second, the ending

–(r)en is added, child – children. Third, with some nouns the final –f changes into –ves, calf – calves, however, many nouns ending in –f form the plural regularly, belief – beliefs (pp. 78-79). Some nouns may form both regular and

9 irregular plural, but there may be a difference in meaning, such as brothers (in a family) and brethren (in a community) (Ganshina & Vasilevskaja, 1953, p.

25). Some nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek keep their original plurals, but the regular –s is also possible with some of them (Biber, Conrad & Leech, 2002, p. 79). According to Belán (2007), if a borrowed noun can form regular English plural or keep the original plural as well, the English one is usually used in everyday conversation, while the original one is used in academic language (p.

8). Another irregular plural number is the zero plural (Biber, Conrad & Leech,

2002, p. 79) or isomorphic plural (Payne, 2011, p. 111), which means that the singular and plural form of a noun are the same and the number is expressed by agreement with other sentence elements, such as this sheep is / these sheep are.

Another means of pluralization is suppletion. Payne (2011) distinguishes between week suppletion and strong suppletion. He includes the above mentioned group of nouns which form plural by changing a vowel, such as man

– men, mouse – mice, into the group with week suppletion, and suggests that the only example of strong suppletion in English is person – people. He notes, however, that this example is rather problematic, because the regular plural persons exists as well, and people may be considered a collective noun without singular form (p. 110). In contrast, Dušková (1994) does not distinguish between week and strong suppletion, and does not mention the group of nouns with vowel change in connection with suppletion at all. She names these examples of suppletion: Sir – Gentlemen, Madam – Ladies, Mr. – Messrs, Mrs. –

Mesdames. These words may, however, form regular plurals as well, depending on context (p. 43).

There are special rules of pluralization of compound words. Dušková

(1994) gives the following examples. If none of the parts of the compound is a noun, the last part forms plural, grown-up – grown-ups. If the main part of the compound is a noun, the noun is pluralized, looker-on – lookers-on. If two nouns are in an appositional relation, the second one is pluralized, boy-friend – boy-friends. If the word man or woman is part of such a compound, it is pluralized as well, manservant – menservants. This is not true if the compound is not appositional, woman-hater – woman-haters. (p. 43)

Besides singular and plural, there used to be the dual number in English as well. As examples, Bělíček (2001) names the Old English personal pronouns wit (we two) and git (you two) (p. 59). A few remains of the dual number have survived until today. Dušová (1994) names these examples: both, either, neither, and she points out that in today’s Czech there are more traces of the dual number than in today’s English (p. 36).

2.2 Number in Czech

Czech is an inflectional language, and therefore, it expresses various grammatical categories by inflection. As Rusínová (1993) says: “Gramatický význam čísla (singularita nebo pluralita) je vyjadřován gramatickou formou

čísla, tj. celým souborem koncovek singulárových i plurálových, a to jen tímto souborem, nikoli jinou další libovolnou koncovkou” [“The meaning of grammatical number (singularity or plurality) is expressed by a grammatical form of number, i.e. by a whole set of singular as well as plural endings, and only by this set, not by any other arbitrary ending.”](p. 4).

As Komárek (1986) points out, a noun ending expresses the noun’s number, gender and case at the same time (p. 42). In case of masculine nouns, animacy is expressed as well. The endings depend on a given declension.

Cummins (1991) gives this overview of declensions in Czech:

In Czech handbook tradition gender dominates declensional pattern.

Declension la comprises masc inanimates, hard and soft (hrad, stroj);

1b, masc animates in zero, hard and soft (pán, muž) and masc animates

with a real N desinence (předseda, soudce). Declension IIa comprises

fems with a real ending (žena, duše, or its present-day successor in

paradigm models, nůše ‘basket’), and IIb, those without an ending

(píseň, kost). The third declension comprises neuters, hard and soft

(město, moře), and neuters in -i (psaní); the productive- nt-class (kuře,

G kuřete) is said to decline soft in the sg and hard in the pl. (p. 256)

Altogether there are 14 paradigms. Each of them comprises two sets of endings, singular and plural. Each set contains seven endings, each for one grammatical case. This does not, however, mean that there are 196 different endings, each expressing unambiguously a given combination of number, case, gender (or declension) and paradigm. Some endings are unambiguous, but many reappear within a given paradigm or even among paradigms. Corbett

(1994) uses the term syncretism for such cases (p. 210). Komárek (1986) focuses on such cases when endings of the same grammatical case and the same paradigm are the same in the singular and the plural, he calls this homonymy of number. An example of this is the paradigm stavení (referred to as psaní in Cummin’s (1991) overview above) which has the same form, stavení, in both the singular and the plural in the nominative, genitive, accusative and vocative case (Komárek, 1986, p. 43). Komárek (1986) suggests that in such cases the number may be expressed unambiguously by means of agreement, numerals or context (pp. 43-44). These means are also used when expressing the number of nouns which cannot be inflected, such as kupé

(compartment), as in toto kupé je prázdné / tato kupé jsou prázdná (this compartment is empty / these compartments are empty), or jedno kupé / dvě kupé (one compartment / two compartments).

Another means of pluralization is suppletion. However, as Corbett (1994) points out, in Slavonic languages there is a suppletion of noun stems not of whole nouns, because even those nouns that make plural by suppletion take either singular or plural endings (p. 208). Havránek and Jedlička (1988) use the example člověk – lidé (p. 124) which corresponds to the English couple person

– people discussed above. In contrast to the English regular plural persons, the

Czech regular plural *člověkové is not possible. Persons, however, may be translated into Czech as osoby which is the regular plural of the člověk’s synonym osoba.

Another irregularity pointed out by Havránek and Jedlička (1988) is the fact that some nouns differ in gender in the singular and the plural (p. 124), therefore, such a noun takes singular and plural endings each of a different paradigm. An example taken from Havránek and Jedlička (1988) is dítě (neuter, paradigm kuře) / děti (fem, paradigm kost) (child/children) (p. 124).

Some apparent irregularities in the declension of several nouns originate from the abandoned sets of dual number endings. Nouns referring to body parts which we have in pairs, such as eyes, hands or legs, take dual endings in some grammatical cases. As Havránek and Jedlička (1988) observe, these nouns only take dual endings when referring to body parts, if they are used in figurative meaning, they take regular plural endings (p. 124). Besides body parts, also the numerals dva (two), oba (both) (Havránek & Jedlička, 1988, p.

125) and sto (hundred) (Cvrček, 2010, p. 137) take irregular endings in some cases.

3. Countability

In contrast to grammatical number, countability is not expressed by specific morphological means, therefore, it is disputable whether it is a grammatical category at all. For example, Erhart (2001) does not mention countability in his list of grammatical categories. According to Bělíček (2001), countability is “recognized as an independent category,” (p. 33) but he suggests that, provided that its only grammeme is the article which is shared with determination, countability and determination should be treated as one category, the category of partitivity (p. 33). Moreover, the situation may vary from language to language, because, as Rusínová (1993) says, the number of grammatical categories may differ in various languages, because what is expressed grammatically in one language, may be expressed lexically in another (p. 4). The difference in traditional approach to countability in English and Czech is discussed later in this thesis.

Another problem with countability is that it may but does not have to reflect extra-linguistic reality. Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002), among others, give this simple definition: “Countable common nouns refer to entities which can be counted” and “uncountable common nouns refer to something which cannot be counted.” (p. 56) They further argue, however, that “countability is partly a matter of how we view the world, rather than how the world really is.”

(p. 57) They mention words such as furniture and traffic as examples of English uncountable nouns which refer to items that actually may be counted (p. 57), and their counterparts are countable in some languages, for instance Giering,

Graustein, Hoffmann and Schentke (1997) mention the countable noun

Information – Informationen in German, as opposed to the English uncountable noun information (p. 67). Dušková (1994) suggests that the category of countability is both semantic and grammatical. It reflexes the extra-linguistic difference between discreet units, and entities that create continuum (p. 49).

She points out that the degree of grammaticalization of countability varies among languages, and that some elements of extra-linguistic reality may be referred to by countable nouns in some languages and uncountable in others

(p. 50). She argues that in English countability is more grammaticalized than in

Czech because of the possibility of expressing countability by means of indefinite determiners (p. 51). Contrastingly, Chalker and Weiner (1994) strictly say that “the uncount versus count distinction is grammatical, not semantic,” because of the above mentioned variability among languages (p. 408).

Furthermore, Štícha (2013) suggests that rather than the term “počitatelnost”

(countability, the quality of being able to be counted) the term “počítanost” (the quality of being counted) should be used, given that nouns with the same referent may differ in countability across languages (p. 291). For the same reason, Baldwin and Bond (2003b) point out that, even though countability is semantically motivated, it is arbitrary to a great extent because “full knowledge of the referent of a noun phrase is not enough to predict countability. There is also a language-specific knowledge requirement.” (p. 464)

Supposing that countability does reflect extra-linguistic reality to some extent, it is time to focus on what it reflects. Carter and McCarthy (2006) give this simple definition: “Count nouns refer to people and things which can be counted. Non-count nouns refer to things which are treated as indivisible

16 wholes which cannot be broken down in order to be counted.” (p. 299)

Similarly, Baldwin and Bond (2003b) say: “Grammatical countability is motivated by the semantic distinction between object and substance reference

(also known as bounded/non-bounded or individuated/non-individuated).” (p.

463) In other words: “The reference of what is linguistically countable is ordinarily perceived in terms of one or more discrete entities. What is uncountable is typically, though not necessarily, perceived as an undifferentiated unity.” (Allan, 1980, p. 565) To summarize, these definitions describe things denoted by uncountable nouns as something that is treated, known or perceived as indivisible.

To be precise, such substances can be divided, but in a way different from the countables, from the linguistic point of view. As Huddleston and

Pullum (2005) put it, “If you cut up some bread, the pieces can still be described by the non-count noun bread. If you take some wood and cut it into shorter lengths, these can still be referred to by means of the non-count noun wood – the same noun is applicable to the same stuff in smaller quantities.” (p.

87) This is not possible with countable nouns, because “a table can be chopped up into smaller parts, but those parts are not themselves tables. Likewise, if you cut a loaf in half, what you have is not two loaves, but two halves of a loaf.” (p.

87) As Gillon (1992) points out, however, this “divisivity of reference” is not a suitable criterion to distinguish countables from uncountables, because there are certain parts of a whole that are too small to be labelled with the same noun as the whole, and there is no universal border size, because what is too small to be furniture does not have to be too small to be water (p. 598). He

17 adds that neither the “cumulativity of reference,” another criterion sometimes proposed to distinguish between countables and uncountables, is universally valid, because it applies to uncountables as well as to plural countables, because not only water and water taken together are referred to by the same noun water, but also horses and horses together are still horses (p. 597).

Therefore, Gillon concludes that “the grammar is mute on whether or not a mass term which is true of a thing is also true of any of its proper parts.” (p.

599)

Thus, the semantic point of view is not reliable when determining the countability of a given noun, and the syntactic point of view is more suitable.

The syntactic behaviour of countable and uncountable nouns in English and

Czech is discussed separately for each language.

Furthermore, whether we call a given referent with a countable or an uncountable noun may change our perception of it, because, as

Athanasopoulos (2006) says, “grammatical representation may influence cognition” (p. 89). In his research he used sets of pictures consisting of one original picture depicting various entities and some copies that differed in the amount of one depicted entity. He showed these sets of pictures to monolingual speakers of English, monolingual speakers of Japanese, and Japanese learners of English as a second language, and asked them which of the copies most resembled the original picture. He found out that English speakers tended to choose those copies that differed in the amount of something that is uncountable in English, and Japanese those that differed in the amount of something that is uncountable in their language. For example, if there were

18 pigs, buckets and mud in the pictures, most English speakers decided that the picture with a different amount of mud most resembled the original. Meanwhile, a similar number of Japanese decided for the picture with more buckets, as for the picture with more mud, because both is uncountable in their language.

Intermediate Japanese learners of English tended to answer similarly to the monolingual Japanese speakers, however, advanced learners answered in a way strikingly similar to native English speakers. Athanosopoulos concludes form this that one’s attention to the amount of something which is uncountable in his or her first language may change when learning a second language where the noun referring to the same item is countable (2006). Therefore, it is perhaps not the case that countability reflects reality, but that our perception of reality is affected by our knowledge of countability.

Some other problematic issues, such as countability of concrete and abstract nouns, ways of sorting nouns according to their countability, collective nouns, or nouns which can be both countable and uncountable, are discussed separately for each language in the following chapters.

3.1 Countability in English

Countability in English was first mentioned by Jespersen in 1909 (Gillon,

1992, p. 597). There has been a long tradition of distinguishing groups of nouns based on countability, however, there are differences not only in terminology, but also in the number of these groups, among various linguists.

Moreover, groups referred to with the same term by different linguists may differ in what nouns they include.

Many linguists prefer a binary opposition. Gillon (1992) distinguishes between count and mass nouns. The term mass in his conception includes all nouns that do not form both numbers, these may be either only singular or only plural, though he maintains that most mass nouns are singular, and those that are plural are rather exceptional. According to Chalker and Weiner (1994), the term mass noun is not exactly the same as uncount, or non-count, even though it is sometimes used as a synonym of uncount, in a narrow sense of the word it is “a particular type of uncount noun” (p. 236). Payne (2011) uses the terms countable and non-countable, he argues that “the term ‘mass noun’ is a bit of a misnomer because only some non-countable nouns refer to ‘masses’” (p. 115).

Leech, Deuchar and Hoogenraad (2006) use the terms count and mass, in their conception, however, mass nouns “normally have no plural” (p. 53). Similarly,

Greenbaum and Nelson (2009), who use the terms count and non-count, say that “non-count nouns are treated as singular” (p. 34). Also Belán (2007) claims that uncountable nouns are only singular (p. 12). Biber, Conrad and Leech

(2002), however, point out that some uncountable nouns are plural, these have plural forms, are followed by a plural verb, but are uncountable, because there

20 is no singular form (pp. 58-59). Also Carter and McCarthy (2006), who distinguish count and non-count nouns, divide non-count nouns into singular and plural. Huddleston and Pullum (2005) distinguish between nouns with variable number and nouns with invariable (fixed) number, the latter includes singular-only and plural-only nouns, which are both non-count in their conception (pp. 85-86). Quirk (1972) uses the terms count and mass nouns, and nouns with variable and invariable number. Mass nouns in his conception are invariable, however, not all invariable are mass nouns. Proper names, for example, are invariable, but not mass (p. 166). Alexander (2010) uses the terms countable and uncountable, and he says that countables are also known as unit or count, and uncountables as mass or non-count (p. 38).

It is, however, possible to divide nouns into more than two groups based on their countability. Ganshina and Vasilevskaja (1953) distinguish countables or thing-nouns, uncountables or mass-nouns which are only singular, and nouns used only in the plural as an independent group (pp. 23-24). Baldwin and Bond (2003a) distinguish four countability classes, countable, uncountable, plural only and bipartite. Uncountables in their conception are only singular.

Bipartite “are plural when they head a noun phrase (trousers), but generally singular when used as a modifier (trouser leg); they can be denumerated with the classifier pair: a pair of scissors.” (pp. 73-74) “Plural only nouns only have a plural form, such as goods, and cannot be either denumerated or modified by much; many plural only nouns, such as clothes, use the plural form even as modifiers: a clothes horse.” (p. 73) Moreover, Allan (1980) distinguishes eight

21 levels of countability, based on the nouns’ countability preferences which are discussed later in this thesis.

For the purposes of this thesis the terms countable and uncountable will be used. Countables include nouns that can form both the singular and the plural number without a change in meaning. Uncountables are either only singular or only plural and cannot change the number without a change in meaning. Nouns like sheep which have the same form in singular and plural are considered countable because they express number by means of agreement.

Nouns like the public are considered uncountable because, even if they may be followed by either singular or plural verb, the actual number of people referred to may be the same in both cases, which is not true of nouns like sheep.

Many nouns can be both countable and uncountable. The meaning of a countable noun, however, is not the same as the meaning of the same noun used as uncountable, though it may be similar. Belán (2007) distinguishes six types of relations between countable and uncountable nouns, as far as their meaning is considered. First, a general term and a particular example such as experience and an experience, second, a material and an object made of it: glass – a glass, third, an activity and its result: drawing – a drawing, fourth, meat and animal: chicken – a chicken, fifth, drinks in general and drinks in portions, beer – a beer, sixth, completely different meaning: toast – a toast.

(pp. 13-14) Alexander (2010) presents a similar list of relations and he adds a substance and its variety: wine – an excellent wine (p. 40). He suggests distinguishing countable and uncountable uses of nouns rather than countable and uncountable nouns (p. 39). Bělíček (2001) says that it would be possible to

22 speak about countable and uncountable forms of one word if there was a means to switch all uncountables into countables, but it is only possible with nouns with what he calls “dual membership,” and therefore he suggests that words like beer and beers may be considered two different words (pp. 92-93).

Carter and McCarthy (2006) use the term dual class nouns and say that nouns can be uncountable when referring to masses and countable when referring to units of masses (p. 180). Dušková (1994) mentions another type of relation in which the uncountable is a quality and the countable is a person with this quality: beauty – a beauty (p. 55). She points out that with some nouns that are both countable and uncountable it is difficult to say which meaning is the original one and which one is derived (p. 53).

Allan (1980) argues that countability is not characteristic of nouns, but of noun phrases. He claims, however, that nouns have “countability preferences,” which means that they tend to appear as heads of countable noun phrases more often than uncountable ones or vice versa. He sets syntactic rules for countables and uncountables and designs phrases in which he tests nouns for countability, for example whether they combine with the indefinite article, cardinal numerals or with all. He concludes that there are eight levels of countability in English represented by these nouns listed form the most countable to the least: car, oak, cattle, Himalayas, scissors, mankind, admiration, equipment. Nouns like car are grammatical in all countable noun phrases and ungrammatical in all uncountable phrases, contrastively, nouns like equipment are always uncountable. The rest of the nouns may be either countable or uncountable depending on a given syntactic environment.

As Baldwin and Bond (2003b) say, “most nouns can have their countability changed: either converted by a lexical rule or embedded in another noun phrase.” (p. 464) The former possibility, lexical conversion, includes changes mentioned above such as beer – a beer. The latter is explained by

Baldwin and Bond as follows: “An example of embedding is the use of a classifier, e.g. uncountable nouns can be embedded in countable noun phrases as complements of classifiers: one piece of equipment.” (p. 464) What they call classifiers is also called partitives by some linguists. Alexander (2010) says that partitives can refer to “a single item (a loaf of bread), a part of a whole (a slice of bread) or a collection of items (a packet of biscuits)” (p. 42). He distinguishes general partitives such as a piece or a bit, and specific partitives such as a bar (of chocolate) or a slice (of bread) (p. 42). Belán (2007) sorts partitives into six groups: general (piece), small amount (drop), greater amount

(heap), specific (ball), containers or packages (bag), and types (brand) (p. 14).

Dušková (1994) calls these lexical means singulatives and gives examples such as an act of friendliness (p. 58).

Even though most uncountable nouns, or uncountable noun phrases, are only singular, an interesting minority of uncountables is only plural, these are called pluralia tantum. Dušková (1994) divides pluralia tantum into groups based on their meaning: clothing (clothes, trousers), instruments (scissors), diseases (measles), sciences in –ics (acoustics), these are used with singular verb when referring to the science and with plural verb when referring to its application, then some partially converted adjectives referring to groups of people (the homeless), then there are some nouns that do not belong to any of

24 the preceding groups (annals, remains, manners), and finally some toponyms

(the Hebrides) (pp. 47-48). Interestingly, some of the nouns which she lists among pluralia, especially those ending in –s and –ics, are considered singular by some linguists. Quirk (1972) lists nouns ending in –s (news), diseases

(mumps), and subjects in –ics (linguistics) among invariable singular nouns, although he admits that some speakers use plural verbs with some of these nouns (pp. 167-168). Dušková (1994) treats the noun news as singular as well

(p. 47), and she also treats as singular names of games such as billiards or darts (p. 46). Contrastively, Payne (2011, p. 119) and Alexander (2010, p. 46) both list nouns ending in –s, such as darts, mumps, linguistics, or news, as pluralia tantum, or as nouns with plural form that may, however, appear with a singular verb. Greenbaum and Nelson (2009), however, treat linguistics, mumps and dominoes as singular, though they admit that they may be used with plural verb, but usually with a change in meaning as in “Dominoes is the only game I play at home.” and “The dominoes are on the floor.”(p. 130).

Giering, Graustein, Hoffmann and Schentke (1977, p. 68) distinguish three groups of plural uncountables: summation plurals, pluralia tantum and collective plurals. Summation plurals, or bipartite nouns, as Baldwin and Bond

(2003a) and Carter (2006) call them, refer to things that consist of two parts, such as scissors and trousers. They may be modified by a pair of, and, as

Baldwin and Bond (2003a) point out, are always plural as a head of a noun phrase, but usually singular as a modifier (p. 73). Pluralia tantum or plural only nouns, such as goods or clothes, are often used in plural even as modifiers

(Baldwin & Bond, 2003a, p. 73). Ganshina and Vasilevskaja’s (1953) group of

25 plural verbal nouns in -ing, such as earnings or sweepings (p. 24) falls within the group of pluralia tantum as well. Finally, collective plurals are nouns referring to groups of individuals such as cattle or people.

Payne (2011) points out that it is important to distinguish between collective plurals and collective nouns. “Collective plurals are ‘special’ plural forms of nouns that exist alongside regular plurals” (p. 120). He suggests that there are only six such nouns: people, cattle, swine, fowl, vermin and kine. He adds that, in comparison to collective nouns, “collective plurals are consistently plural” (p. 120). Furthermore, it is more common to use regular plurals when speaking about small numbers, two cows, and collective plurals when speaking about large numbers, million cattle, if used without numerals, collective plurals are the unmarked variant, while the regular plurals are marked, highlighting the individuality of the group’s members (p. 121). The other group, collective nouns, “refer to conventionally recognized groups of things” (p. 121). In contrast to collective plurals, collective nouns are not plural and can be pluralized, army – armies, band – bands (p. 121). They are used with singular verb when referred to as a group, and plural verb when individual members are emphasized (p. 121).

Belán (2007) distinguishes three types of collectives. First, those that may form plural number, family – families, and if they are singular, they may choose between singular or plural verb, My family is/are coming. Second, those that are only singular and may choose either singular or plural verb, offspring, the majority, the public. Third, those that only have singular form, but are followed by plural verb: cattle, people, the clergy, the police (p. 10).

Dušková (1994) divides collectives from the semantic point of view. She distinguishes two types, group collectives which refer to groups of individuals such as committee or family, and generic collectives which refer to a whole class, bourgeoisie or clergy (p. 44). She points out that singular collectives may be followed by a singular verb if the grammatical aspect is taken into account, or by plural verb if the semantic aspect prevails (p. 44).

Another interesting group of plural uncountables are those that have a completely different meaning from the same nouns used as countable, such as arms, customs or glasses (Belán, 2007, p. 9). Dušková (1994) point out that differences in meaning between singular and plural are especially common among nouns that are uncountable both in singular and plural, such as damage

– damages (p. 46).

Such as there is a tradition of distinguishing countable and uncountable nouns, i.e. from the grammatical point of view, there is also a tradition of distinguishing nouns from the semantic point of view into concrete and abstract nouns. In English, both concrete and abstract nouns can be either countable or uncountable, but, as Greenbaum and Nelson (2009) suggest, “there is a general tendency for abstract nouns to be non-count” (p. 34). Also Quirk

(1972) agrees that “concrete nouns are mainly count and abstract mainly mass”

(p. 129). This tendency, however, cannot be relied on when determining the countability of a particular noun, as there are examples of countable abstracts and uncountable concretes as well. Quirk (1972) lists difficulty and worry among countable abstracts, and iron and butter among uncountable concrete nouns.

Finally, Bělíček (2001) states that “countability shares one formal means

(the definite and indefinite article) with determination and one formal device

(the singular-plural opposition) with number,” (p. 93) therefore, it does not have its own markers. As Bělíček says “neither the semantic nor the formal criterion goes to the pith and marrow of the problem” (p. 93). The supposition that uncountable nouns are not that different from countable, from the semantic point of view, is supported by the fact that in some sentences we may use either an uncountable noun or its countable equivalent without a change in meaning. Dušková (1994) says that some uncountables have countable synonyms and gives examples such as housework – a chore / chores or imagination – a fancy (p. 58). Gillon (1992) proved in his research that “two sentences which differ only in that one has a plural count noun where the other has a synonymous mass noun, should have the same construals, modulo differences in the implicatures attributable either to the grammaticalization of the atomicity of the denotation, in the former case, or to the lack of it, in the latter case.” (p. 636) These differences are apparent from his two example sentences: The drapery and the carpeting resemble each other. and The drapes and the carpets resemble each other. The former sentence only has one possible reading, i.e. that the drapery resembles the carpeting. The latter sentence has the same meaning, but it is also true if the drapes resemble each other and the carpets resemble each other, while the drapes do not resemble the carpets (p. 629). Nevertheless, the alternative reading of the second sentence is only possible in a specific context. The basic meaning of the two sentences is the same.

To summarize, even though there are certain semantic differences between countable and uncountable nouns, it is more reliable to distinguish countables from uncountables according to their syntactical behaviour. The ways how countable and uncountable nouns combine with other sentence elements are discussed later in this thesis.

3.2 Countability in Czech

In her thesis from 1983, Dagmar Vavrušová says: “You do not find the term countability in any of Czech grammars because this grammatical category is unknown and foreign in Czech. There are, however, words in Czech which can appear only in the singular or the plural.” (p. 14) Also Dušková, in her grammar from 1994, states that the English grammatical categories of countability and determination do not exist in Czech, though countability may be expressed lexically and determination by means of context (p. 35).

However, times have changed and recent Czech grammars do take countability into account, and some older grammars do distinguish groups of nouns based on their countability as well, even though they do not use the term countability. Karlík (2014), for example, does not focus on countability itself, but he uses the terms countable and uncountable nouns when discussing other linguistic issues, which may suggest that he takes countability in Czech for granted. Crvček (2010) gives this definition of countables: “Počitatelná substantiva označují entity, které lze počítat, tj. lze je vnímat jako jednotlivé prvky nějakého souboru. Substantiva vyjadřující opozici singulár × plurál se vesměs pojí se základními číslovkami, jsou tedy počitatelná.” [“Countable nouns denote entities which can be counted, i.e. it is possible to perceive them as individual elements of a set. Nouns expressing the singular × plural opposition can generally combine with cardinal numerals, therefore, they are countable.”]

(p. 137) He further distinguishes singularia tantum and pluarlia tantum. He applies this distinction even to proper names, in contrast to Alexander (2010), who, among others, only distinguishes countability classes in English common

30 nouns. Cvrček (2010), however, only uses the term uncountable for nouns that cannot be counted by any possible means, therefore he excludes many pluralia tantum, because, as he says, many pluralia tantum in Czech can be counted by means of collective numerals, such as dvoje džíny (two pairs of jeans) (p. 138).

Štícha (2013) distinguishes nouns with full and limited number paradigm. He explains that he intentionally avoids the terms countable and uncountable, because the same thing may be denoted by a countable noun in one language and an uncountable one in another language, and, because even in Czech many “uncountables” are not absolutely uncountable (p. 291). For the same reasons, he does not use the attribute tantum when speaking about nouns with limited number paradigm, and only uses the terms singularia and pluralia. He adds that it is more common for singularia to be pluralized than for pluralia to be used in singular, the latter case is very rare, but not impossible (p. 295).

Komárek (1986) distinguishes four classes of nouns based on their grammatical number: a class of objects that exist primarily as individual units, a class of objects that are primarily found in groups but with an apparent possibility to distinguish individual units, a class of complex, unbounded objects, and finally, a class of unique, compact, or collective objects. He points out that the shared quality of the former two classes is countability, which is absent in the case of the latter classes (p. 31). He further speaks about two groups of nouns, those that form both the singular and the plural number, and those that do not, i.e. are either only (or mostly) singular or only plural, the latter group is called uncountable (p. 45).

Havránek and Jedlička (1988) do not use the term countability, but they point out that there are nouns that do not form both the singular and the plural number. They say that there are three groups of nouns that only exist in singular: names of qualities and activities such as spaní (sleep, sleeping), collective nouns denoting sets of objects of the same kind such as listí (foliage), and names of substances such as voda (water). Then there are pluralia tantum which only exist in the plural number and denote either one complex object or more than one. Cvrček (2010) says that there are four groups of singularia tantum: names of substances, vzduch (air), many collective nouns, hmyz

(insects), many abstract nouns, impresionismus (impressionism), and proper names of unique objects, Francie (France) (p. 137).

An interesting group of singularia tantum are jména hromadná (collective nouns) which denote a set of individuals, but their form is singular. Komárek

(1986) distinguishes collectives that were formed from countable nouns by a suffix, such as list – listí (leaf – foliage), and semantic collectives such as dobytek (cattle). These two types of collectives do not form plural number.

Then he mentions nouns that do refer to a set of individuals but do not specify their type, these can form plural forms, such as stádo – stáda (a herd – herds).

He further adds that collective nouns denote groups of people or animals, such as dělnictvo (workmen) or dobytek (cattle), types of vegetation, kvítí (flowers), and sets of things or natural phenomenon, uhlí (coal) (pp. 48-49). Trávníček

(1951) says that collective nouns are derived from nouns or rarely from adjectives. They may be formed from inanimate nouns by suffixes –í and –oví, such as dříví (wood, timber) or kamení (stone, rocks), or from animate, scarcely

32 inanimate, nouns by –stvo or –ctvo, such as bratrstvo (brotherhood, confraternity), less common are nouns derived with –ina, such as chudina (the poor), and very rare are nouns with –ež, drůbež (poultry). He adds that there are some nouns that became collective by a change in meaning, such as mládí

(youth) which originally referred to young age, and later to young people. (pp.

314-315)

In Czech, as well as in English, it is possible to use some usually uncountable nouns as countables. Komárek (1986) says that the reasons for this are both formal and semantic in Czech. First, it is possible to form the singular and the plural form for any noun by means of grammatical endings.

Second, the meaning of some singularia may be modified, which allows them to be counted, such as láska (love) which is uncountable when referring to the feeling and countable when referring to a beloved person (p. 46). Štícha (2013) points out that it is more common to use singularia in plural than pluralia in singular. Crvček (2010) says that substances of various types are denoted with plural noun, such as minerální vody (mineral waters). Moreover, some substances can be counted by means of a unit of measurement, such as tři sklenice piva (three glasses of beer), in this case the noun pivo is singular (the

–a ending expresses the genitive case, not the plural number), but if the unit of measurement is omitted, the noun is plural, such as tři piva (three beers – the nominative case, plural) (p. 138). Štícha (2013) says that if uncountable nouns referring to substances are used as countables, they refer to types or portion of substances, or highlight the intensity of a natural phenomenon, such as mlhy

(fogs) (p. 292). Collectives used in plural refer to various types or to an

33 exceptionally huge amount (p. 293). Uncountable abstract nouns used as countable are caused by a shift in meaning, or refer to repeated activities, products of an abstract quality, or to various types (p. 293). Nouns referring to unique objects used as countables are caused by a shift in meaning (p. 294).

Pluralia can be used in singular in a specific context, but they are not fully countable and often cannot combine with cardinal numerals (p. 295). Some pluralia can be used as countables but with a different meaning, such as noviny

(uncountable, newspaper) – novina (countable, news), or hodiny (uncountable, clock) – hodina (countable, hour) (Havránek & Jedlička, 1988, p. 132).

It is also possible to count uncountables by means of special nouns which in Czech are called singulativa (partitives in English). Komárek (1986) gives examples such as plátek (slice), kousek (bit), arch (sheet). He points out that many of these words are diminutives (p. 49). Karlík (2014) points out that these words when used with uncountable nouns as a modifier behave in a different way than when used with countable modifiers. He demonstrates it by means of these two sentences: Snědl talíř polévky. (He ate a plate of soup.) and Snědl talíř naší babičky. (He ate a plate of our grandmother). In the former case, where the plate serves as a partitive, the person actually ate the soup, not the plate, whereas in the latter case, where the plate stands as a standard lexical noun, he ate the plate, not the grandmother (pp. 71-72).

In Czech, as well as in English, uncountable nous are both abstract and concrete. Corbett (1994) says about Slavonic languages that “as a broad generalization we may suggest that most nouns denoting concrete objects distinguish singular and plural while most denoting abstracts do not” (p. 204).

Štícha (2013), however, distinguishes four groups of singularia, of which two groups are purely concrete and one purely abstract. He says that pluralia may be either concrete or abstract (p. 294).

In contrast to English, where, as Allan (1980) says, “the countability of an NP [noun phrase] must be known or made known to the audience,” (p. 565) and therefore “in singular indefinite NP’s, where the head-noun morphology is identical for countables and uncountables, there is obligatory inclusion of a denumerator,” (p. 565) in Czech there is no obligatory indefinite article, therefore in some sentences it would not be possible to guess the countability of a noun if the audience did not know the meaning of the word, such as Pes je zvíře. (A dog is an animal.) and Voda je kapalina. (Water is liquid.), where both countable and uncountable nouns are used without any determiner.

4. Agreement

In English, the agreement in number is between nouns and verbs, nouns and pronouns, and nouns and their determiners. It is the noun (or a pronoun if it heads a noun phrase) that governs the number of the other elements.

There are some special rules for which modifiers can be used with countable and uncountable nouns. As Gillon (1994) puts it: “Cardinal numerals and quasi-cardinal numerals (e.g., ‘several’) modify count nouns, never mass nouns. Moreover, ‘little’ and ‘much’ modify mass nouns, never count nouns; whereas ‘few’ and ‘many’ modify count nouns, never mass nouns.” He adds that “mass nouns with singular morphology do not tolerate the indefinite article, whereas singular count nouns do. Finally, mass nouns occur only with the plural form of those quantifiers whose singular and plural forms differ.” (p. 597)

Furthermore, Leech, Deuchar and Hoogenraad (2006) point out that it is important to distinguish between grammatical and notional number of nouns.

Especially some collectives and pronouns like none, any, either, neither, and everyone may be followed by a singular verb when the grammatical number is taken into account, but they may be sometimes followed by a plural verb if the notional number is taken into account, such as in None of the parcels has/have yet arrived. (p. 190) Humphreys and Bock (2005) researched this issue, they used noun phrases such as the gang on the motorcycles (distributed construal: many motorcyclists, i.e. plural notional number) and the gang near the motorcycles (collected construal: one gang, i.e. singular notional number), and asked their respondents to add a verb to each noun phrase, and concluded that: “More plural verbs occurred with distributed than with collected

36 construals. That is, the notional number of subject phrases had small but reliable effects on verb agreement when their grammatical properties remained constant.” (p. 692)

Gillon (1994) points out that there are sentences such as Every child loves their mother (p. 604), in which the pronoun apparently disobeys the agreement. He explains that, for some English speakers, using the singular pronoun his, would entail that every child is a boy, therefore, it is necessary to use “the ‘nearest’ pronoun which neutralizes the difference in gender,” which is their (p. 606).

Finally, as Aarts (2011) points out, pronouns, except for one, do not have inflectional plurals, but there are singular and plural pronouns such as I and we (p. 45).

In Czech, the nouns agree in number with verbs, adjectives and pronouns (Svoboda, 1977, p. 109). In contrast to English, Czech adjectives are inflected for number.

The difference between countable and uncountable nouns is that countables combine with cardinal numerals, while uncountables do not.

Uncountables may, however, combine with other sets of numerals which exist in Czech, for example the collective numerals.

In Czech it is the grammatical number of the noun that governs the number of the other sentence elements. There are, however, some exceptions such as the polite form of address, where the plural personal pronoun vy (you) may refer to one person, and combine with a plural verb, but some other

37 sentence elements may be singular, such as in Vy jste (pl) milý (sg) (You are kind).

Finally, Rusínová (1993) points out that pronouns do not really form singular and plural forms. I and we are not two forms of the same pronoun, but two different pronouns, because we is not I + I, but I + someone else. (p. 20)

5. Analysis of Uncountables

5.1 Uncountables

As explained above, many nouns can be used both as countable and as uncountable. There are, however, tendencies for some nouns to be usually countable and other ones to be usually uncountable. In the following research the binary opposition of countable and uncountable nouns is taken for granted.

Countable are those nouns that form both the singular and the plural form, and the singular form refers to one item of something and the plural form refers to more than one item of the same referent. Uncountable are those nouns that do not change their number without a change in meaning. The selected uncountable English nouns were collected from various grammars where they were described as uncountable, or at least uncountable in some of their meanings.

5.2 Hypothesis

Supposing that countability is a grammatical category rather than a semantic one, it may be expected that it differs significantly across languages, and that an object referred to by an uncountable noun in one language may be denoted by a countable noun in another language. There may also be a difference in countability among synonyms in one language. The hypothesis to be proved or disproved here is that to many English uncountable nouns it is possible to find both countable and uncountable Czech equivalents, but that there are also some English uncountables to which every possible Czech equivalent is countable.

5.3 Method

In the first column of Table 1, there are English uncountable nouns collected from various grammars where they were listed as examples of uncountable nouns. It is important to notice that many authors of grammars try to give examples of any possible group of nouns they mention. For example, some give as many examples of pluralia tantum as of singularia tantum, even though they claim that singularia are much more common than pluralia.

Therefore, there is no point in making any conclusion about English uncountables based on the second column of Table 1 which distinguishes singularia tantum (sg) (such as advice), pluralia tantum (pl) (arms), collectives

(coll) (cattle), and nouns with the plural form and possible singular agreement

(pl/sg) (dominoes). The second column is here only to be compared with the last column that shows a similar distinction for Czech uncountables. The third column shows whether the same noun was also found as countable in a dictionary, or whether it may form both the singular and the plural form, regardless to their meaning and countability (because sometimes there are both the singular and the plural form, but both are uncountable, such as damage and damages. Sometimes a noun can be used as both countable and uncountable, but with completely different meaning, such as the countable arm

– arms and the uncountable arms). Therefore, the third column says “yes” for beer, because the form beers exists as well, regardless to its meaning, and it says “yes” for information as well even though *informations is incorrect, but an information is possible, which is enough to mark the noun as countable in some dictionaries, and finally, it says “no” for advice because the form *advices

40 was not found in any of the consulted sources, nor was the noun described as countable in any of the dictionaries listed in the next paragraph. Finally, the fourth and the fifth column show the Czech equivalents (countable and uncountable respectively) of the English nouns if there are any. The last column shows the type of the Czech uncountable noun. There are five types altogether, one type of pluralia tantum named pomnožné (plurale tantum), and four types of singularia tantum: abstraktní (abstract), látkové (substance, material), hromadné (collective), and unikum (unique).

The nouns in the first column of Table 1 were collected from various grammars listed at the end of this thesis. They were checked in Cambridge

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2014) and Oxford Compact Dictionary (2014) to determine their number and countability. If a noun was not found in the two dictionaries, Macmillan Dictionary (2009) and The Collins English Dictionary

(2011) were consulted as well. A few nouns collected from the grammars were not found in any of the four dictionaries, and therefore, had to be removed from the corpus. If a noun was described as both uncountable and countable in any of the dictionaries, it was assigned “yes” in the third column of Table 1.

The third column is named “Both forms” in order to be short, but not all the countable nouns do form both the singular and the plural form, as explained by

Allan (1980), some nouns only manifest their countability by means of combining with the indefinite article a/an, not by forming the plural. It was not possible to name the third column simply “Countable,” because some nouns exist in both the singular and the plural form, but each of them is uncountable

(in such cases the singular and the plural form are listed as two separate

41 entries in a dictionary and are rather two different nouns than two forms of one noun, but for the purposes of this thesis they are considered to be two forms of one noun even if their meaning is completely different). The nouns that were not assigned “yes” after being checked in the dictionaries were further checked in BYU-BNC: British National Corpus (Davies, 2004-), and assigned “yes” if the other form (i.e. the plural form of a singulare tantum or the singular form of a plurale tantum) appeared at least twenty times, or “no” if it did not. A special attention had to be paid to nouns that share their form with verbs, such as abuse, so as not to confuse the plural form of the noun with the third person of the present simple tense of the verb.

The Czech equivalents in the fourth and the fifth column were collected by means of the dictionaries Anglicko-český praktický slovník (2015) and

Slovník českých synonym a antonym (2012), and by means of the knowledge of the author of this thesis of her native tongue. If a Czech uncountable noun is assigned the type “pomnožné” (plurale tantum) in the last column of the table, it was found in Internetový slovník současné češtiny (2016), or in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (Havránek 2011). The types of singularia tantum were determined by the author of this thesis herself, as singularia tantum are not marked as singularia tantum in Czech dictionaries.

When the corpus was created, English uncountable nouns were compared with their Czech equivalents for number and countability as is shown in part 5.5 Results, following Table 1.

5.4 Corpus of Uncountables

Table 1

English Uncountables and Their Czech Equivalents

English noun Type Both Czech countable Czech Type of the forms uncountable Czech uncountable Abuse sg yes zneužití zneužívání abstraktní Accommodation sg yes nocleh ubytování abstraktní Advice sg no rada Air sg yes vzduch látkové Alms pl no almužna Amends pl no náhrada odškodnění abstraktní Anger sg no vztek abstraktní Annals pl yes kronika anály pomnožné Antics pl no šaškárny dovádění abstraktní Antipodes pl yes protinožci Applause sg no potlesk ovace pomnožné Arabic sg no arabština unikum Archery sg no lukostřelba abstraktní Archives pl yes archiv Arrears pl yes nedoplatky Aristocracy coll yes šlechtici šlechta hromadné Arms pl yes zbraně zbroj hromadné Army coll yes armáda Ashes pl yes uhlíky popel látkové Assets pl yes aktiva jmění abstraktní Assistance sg no přispění pomoc abstraktní Auspices pl no patronát abstraktní Baggage sg no zavazadla bagáž hromadné Bagpipes pl no dudy pomnožné Banns pl no ohlášky pomnožné Barley sg no ječmen látkové Beef sg yes hovězí adjektivum Beer sg yes pivo pivo látkové Behaviour sg yes způsoby chování abstraktní Bellows pl yes měchy Belongings pl no věci majetek hromadné Billiards pl/sg no kulečník abstraktní Binoculars pl no triedr Bowls pl/sg yes bowls abstraktní Braces pl yes rovnátka pomnožné Bravery sg no odvaha abstraktní Bread sg yes chléb chleba látkové

Breeches pl yes pumpky pomnožné Briefs pl yes spodky pomnožné Brushwood sg no větvičky klestí hromadné Business sg yes obchody podnikání abstraktní Butter sg no máslo látkové Camping sg no stanování abstraktní Cardboard sg no karton karton látkové Cards pl/sg yes karty karty pomnožné Cash sg no částka hotovost abstraktní Cattle coll no hospodářská dobytek hromadné zvířata/hovada Cement sg yes cement látkové Chalk sg yes křída křída látkové Change sg yes drobné adjektivum Chaos sg no zmatek chaos abstraktní Charges pl yes poplatky Cheese sg yes sýr sýr látkové Chess sg no šachová partie šachy pomnožné Chicken sg yes kuře kuřecí adjektivum China sg no porcelán látkové China sg no porcelán hromadné Chocolate sg yes čokoláda čokoláda látkové Cinders pl yes oharky řeřavý popel látkové Clergy coll yes duchovní duchovenstvo hromadné Clomipramine sg no klomipramin látkové Clothing sg no oděv oblečení hromadné Coal sg yes uhly uhlí látkové Cocoa sg no kakao látkové Coffee sg yes káva káva látkové Colours pl yes prapor Comestibles pl no potraviny, jídlo, potrava hromadné poživatiny Compasses pl yes kružítko Compost sg yes kompost látkové Conduct sg no způsoby chování abstraktní Congratulations pl yes gratulace gratulování abstraktní Contents pl yes obsah abstraktní Cookery sg no vaření abstraktní Cooking sg no vaření abstraktní Copper sg yes měď látkové Corduroys pl yes manšestráky pomnožné Costs pl yes výdaje vydání abstraktní Cotton sg yes bavlna látkové Countryside sg no krajina příroda abstraktní Courage sg no odvaha abstraktní Craps pl/sg yes kostky kostky pomnožné

Cream sg yes smetana látkové Credentials pl yes renomé abstraktní Crew coll yes posádka Crockery sg no nádoby nádobí, servis hromadné Curry sg yes karí látkové Customs pl yes celnice Cutlery sg no příbor hromadné Cuttings pl yes odstřižky Damage sg yes škoda Damages pl yes náhrada odškodné abstraktní Darts pl/sg yes šipka šipky pomnožné Denims pl yes džíny pomnožné Destruction sg yes destrukce zkáza abstraktní Details pl yes podrobnosti, údaje Determination sg yes rozhodnost abstraktní Dice pl/sg yes kostka kostky pomnožné Difficulty sg yes obtížnost abstraktní Digs pl yes podnájem podnájem abstraktní Dirt sg no nečistota špína látkové Discontent sg yes nespokojenost abstraktní DNA sg yes Deoxyribonukleo DNA unikum vé kyseliny Documents pl yes doklady Doings pl yes činnosti Dominoes pl/sg yes domino abstraktní Dough sg yes těsto látkové Draughts pl/sg yes dáma abstraktní Drawing sg yes kreslení abstraktní Dregs pl no sedlina lógr látkové Drinkables pl no nápoje pití hromadné Droppings pl yes bobky trus látkové Dross sg no struska látkové Dust sg no prach látkové Eagerness sg no dychtivost abstraktní Earnings pl no výdělek, mzda Eatables pl no poživatiny jídlo hromadné (sg) Eaves pl yes okap Edibles pl no poživatiny jídlo hromadné Education sg yes škola vzdělání abstraktní Egg sg yes vejce Electricity sg no elektřina, abstraktní proud Embers pl yes oharky Ends pl yes zbytky

Equality sg yes rovnost abstraktní Evacuation sg yes evakuace evakuace abstraktní Evidence sg yes důkaz prokázání abstraktní Excrement sg no exkrement trus látkové Experience sg yes zkušenosti praxe abstraktní Failure sg yes neúspěch neschopnost abstraktní Fat sg yes tuk látkové Fetters pl yes okovy pomnožné Filings pl yes kovové piliny Finances pl yes prostředky finance pomnožné Fireworks pl yes ohňostroj Fives pl/sg yes fives abstraktní Flannels pl yes flanelové pomnožné kalhoty Flour sg yes mouka látkové Flu sg no chřipka abstraktní Foam sg yes pěna látkové Food sg yes pokrm jídlo hromadné Football sg yes fotbal abstraktní Footwear sg no boty obuv hromadné Forceps pl no peán chirurgické pomnožné kleště Fowl coll yes ptáci drůbež hromadné Freedom sg yes svoboda abstraktní Friendship sg yes přátelství abstraktní Fruit sg yes plody ovoce hromadné Fun sg no zábava abstraktní Funds pl yes zdroje peníze pomnožné Furniture sg no nábytek hromadné Gallows pl/sg no šibenice Garbage sg no odpadky smetí hromadné Gas sg yes plyn látkové Genetics pl/sg no genetika abstraktní Genitals pl no přirození genitálie pomnožné Gentry coll no páni panstvo hromadné Glass sg yes sklo látkové Glasses pl yes brýle pomnožné Goggles pl yes ochranné brýle pomnožné Gold sg yes zlato látkové Goodness sg no dobrota abstraktní Goods pl yes produkty zboží hromadné Gossip sg yes klepy klábosení abstraktní Grass sg yes tráva Gratitude sg no vděčnost abstraktní Grease sg no mazadlo maz látkové Greens pl yes listová zelenina hromadné

Greetings pl yes pozdravy Groceries pl yes potraviny jídlo hromadné Grounds pl yes pozemky Gruel sg no ovesná kaše ovesná kaše látkové Guts pl yes žaludek (na kuráž abstraktní něco) Hair sg yes vlasy Handcuffs pl no pouta Happiness sg no štěstí abstraktní Harm sg yes škoda Hash sg no hašé hašé látkové Hatred sg yes nenávist abstraktní Headphones pl no sluchátka Help sg yes pomoc abstraktní Herpes sg no opar Holidays pl yes prázdniny pomnožné Homework sg no domácí úkol domácí abstraktní příprava Honours pl yes vyznamenání Hospitality sg no pohostinnost abstraktní Housework sg no domácí práce Humour sg yes humor abstraktní Ice sg yes led látkové Ice hockey sg no hokej abstraktní Imitation sg yes napodobování abstraktní Indebtedness sg no zadluženost abstraktní Information sg yes informace Injustice sg yes nespravedlnost abstraktní Iron sg yes železo látkové Irons pl yes pouta okovy pomnožné Italian sg yes italština unikum Jam sg yes marmeláda marmeláda látkové Japanese sg yes japonština unikum Jealousy sg yes žárlivost abstraktní Jeans pl yes džíny pomnožné Jewellery sg no šperky Jodhpurs pl no rajtky pomnožné Jogging sg no běhání abstraktní Juice sg yes džus džus látkové Kine coll no krávy skot hromadné Knickers pl no kalhotky pomnožné Knowledge sg yes vědomosti vědění abstraktní Lamb sg yes jehněčí adjektivum Lard sg no sádlo látkové Lead sg yes vedení abstraktní Leavings pl no zbytky

Lees pl yes sedlina Leggings pl no legíny pomnožné Leisure sg no volno abstraktní Lemonade sg yes limonáda limonáda látkové Letters pl yes literatura abstraktní Life sg yes život život, bytí abstraktní Lightning sg yes blesk blýskání abstraktní Likes pl yes záliby Linen sg yes prádlo hromadné Lingerie sg no prádlo, hromadné prádélko Litter sg yes odpadky smetí hromadné Looks pl yes (dobrý) vzhled abstraktní Love sg yes láska abstraktní Luck sg no štěstí abstraktní Luggage sg no zavazadla bagáž hromadné Macaroni sg no makarony Machinery sg no stroje technika hromadné Mains pl yes rozvody Maize sg no kukuřice kukuřice látkové Manacles pl no pouta pomnožné Manners pl yes způsoby společenské abstraktní chování Marbles pl/sg yes kuličky kuličky pomnožné Meat sg yes maso látkové Milk sg yes mléko látkové Minutes pl yes zápis, protokol Model-making sg no modelářství abstraktní Money sg yes peníze pomnožné Moonlight sg no měsíční svit abstraktní Mud sg yes bahno látkové Music sg yes hudba abstraktní Mustard sg yes hořčice látkové News sg no zprávy zpravodajství abstraktní Nippers pl yes kleště pomnožné Noise sg yes hluk abstraktní Nonsense sg yes nesmysl Nuptials pl no svatba vdavky pomnožné Nutcrackers pl yes louskáček Oat sg yes oves látkové Oats pl yes oves látkové Obsequies pl no pohřební obřad Odds pl yes šance Oil sg yes olej olej látkové Olympics pl no olympiáda olympijské hry pomnožné

On-goings pl no události dění abstraktní /goings-on Optics pl/sg yes optika abstraktní Outskirts pl no předměstí Overalls pl yes pracovní montérky pomnožné kombinéza Oxygen sg no kyslík látkové Pains pl yes námaha, úsilí abstraktní Paint sg yes barva barva látkové Painting sg yes malování abstraktní Pantaloons pl yes pantalóny pomnožné Panties pl no kalhotky pomnožné Paper sg yes papír papír látkové Papers pl yes dokumenty Parings pl yes ořezy, ostřižky Parking sg no parkoviště parkování abstraktní Particulars pl yes podrobnosti Pasta sg yes těstoviny Patience sg no trpělivost abstraktní Patriotism sg no vlastenectví abstraktní Pay sg no výplata Peace sg no mír abstraktní Peel sg yes slupka People coll yes lidé lid hromadné Pepper sg yes pepř látkové Permission sg yes povolení Perseverance sg no vytrvalost abstraktní Petrol sg no benzín látkové Physics pl/sg yes fyzika abstraktní Pictures pl yes kino, biograf Pincers pl yes kleštičky pomnožné Pliers pl no kleště pomnožné Poetry sg no verše poezie abstraktní Police coll yes policisté policie hromadné Politics pl/sg no politika abstraktní Porridge sg no ovesná kaše ovesná kaše látkové Poteen sg no pálenka látkové Premises pl yes prostory, areál Pride sg yes pýcha abstraktní Proceeds pl no výnos, zisk Produce sg no plodiny Progress sg yes pokrok vývoj abstraktní Provisions pl yes zásoby Public coll yes veřejnost hromadné Pyjamas pl yes pyžamo Quarters pl yes ubytovna

Rackets pl/sg yes raketbal abstraktní Rags pl yes hadry staré oblečení hromadné Rain sg yes déšť déšť abstraktní Rations pl yes příděly proviant hromadné Records pl yes záznamy Refuse sg no odpadky odpad hromadné Regards pl yes pozdravy Relicts/relics pl yes ostatky Remains pl no zbytky Resistance sg yes vzdor abstraktní Returns pl yes výsledky voleb Rice sg no rýže látkové Riches pl no majetek bohatství hromadné Robbery sg yes loupež loupež, lup hromadné Rock sg yes kameny kamení hromadné Room sg yes prostor abstraktní Rubbish sg no odpadky smetí hromadné Running sg no běhání abstraktní Safety sg yes bezpečnost abstraktní Sailing sg yes plachtění abstraktní Salad sg yes salát Salt sg yes sůl látkové Sand sg yes písek látkové Sauce sg yes omáčka látkové Savings pl yes úspory pomnožné Sawings pl no piliny Scaffolding sg yes lešení hromadné Scales pl yes váha váhy pomnožné Scenery sg no kulisy Scissors pl no nůžky pomnožné Scraps pl yes zbytky Seaside sg yes pobřeží Sediment sg yes sediment Sewage sg no splašky pomnožné Shackles pl yes pouta pomnožné Shards pl yes střepy Shavings pl yes hobliny Shears pl yes nůžky pomnožné Shingles pl/sg yes pásový opar Shorts pl yes šortky pomnožné Shreds pl yes cáry Silk sg yes hedvábí látkové Sincerity sg no upřímnost abstraktní Skittles pl/sg yes kuželky kuželky pomnožné Slacks pl yes volné kalhoty pomnožné Slops pl yes pomyje pomnožné

Slums pl yes slumy Smithereens pl no kousíčky padrť látkové Smoking sg no kouření abstraktní Snow sg yes sníh látkové Soap sg yes mýdlo mýdlo látkové Soda sg yes soda soda látkové Soil sg yes hlína látkové Sound sg yes zvuk abstraktní Soup sg yes polévka polévka látkové Spaghetti sg no špagety Spectacles pl yes brýle pomnožné Spelling sg yes pravopis abstraktní Spinach sg no špenát látkové Spirits pl yes lihoviny alkohol látkové Stairs pl yes schody, schodiště Steam sg no pára látkové Steel sg yes ocel látkové Steps pl yes schůdky Stone sg yes kámen kamení hromadné Stores pl yes zásoby vybavení hromadné Strength sg yes síla abstraktní Stress sg yes napětí abstraktní String sg yes šňůra šňůra látkové Stuff sg yes věci materiál látkové Stupidity sg yes hloupost abstraktní Success sg yes úspěch úspěšnost abstraktní Suds pl no mydliny mýdlová pěna látkové Sugar sg yes cukr cukr látkové Sunshine sg no sluneční svit abstraktní Supplies pl yes zásoby zásobování abstraktní Surroundings pl no okolní podmínky okolí abstraktní Suspenders pl yes šle pomnožné Sweepings pl no smetky smetí hromadné Swine coll yes prasata vepřový brav hromadné Tactics pl/sg yes taktika Takings pl yes tržby Talk sg yes mluva abstraktní Tatters pl no cáry Tea sg yes čaj čaj látkové Tenpins pl/sg yes kuželky pomnožné Thanks pl no poděkování děkování abstraktní Thunder sg no hrom hromobití abstraktní Tidings pl yes zvěsti Tights pl no punčocháče pomnožné Timber sg yes dřevo látkové

Time sg yes čas abstraktní Toast sg yes toust, topinka Tobacco sg yes tabák látkové Tongs pl yes kleštičky pomnožné Tonic sg yes tonik tonik látkové Tortellini sg no tortellini pomnožné Traffic sg no provoz abstraktní Transactions pl yes zpráva, zápis Travel sg yes cesty cestování abstraktní Tropics pl yes tropy pomnožné Trousers pl no kalhoty pomnožné Truth sg yes pravda abstraktní Turkish sg no turečtina unikum Tweeds pl yes tvídový oblek Tweezers pl yes pinzeta Underpants pl no slipy pomnožné Underwear sg no prádlo hromadné Uranium sg no uran látkové Valuables pl no cennosti Vapour sg yes opar, pára látkové Vegetables pl yes zelenina hromadné Vermin coll no škůdci havěť hromadné Vespers pl/sg yes večerní nešpory pomnožné bohoslužba Victuals pl no potraviny, poživatiny Vinegar sg yes ocet látkové Violence sg no násilnosti násilí abstraktní Vocabulary sg yes slovíčka slovní zásoba abstraktní Volleyball sg yes volejbal abstraktní Wages pl yes mzda Wares pl yes komodita zboží hromadné Washing sg yes prádlo hromadné Water sg yes voda látkové Wealth sg no majetek bohatství hromadné Weather sg yes počasí abstraktní Weeds pl yes smuteční šaty pomnožné Wetness sg no vlhkost abstraktní Wheat sg yes pšenice látkové Whisky sg yes viska whisky látkové Wine sg yes víno víno látkové Wisdom sg yes moudrost abstraktní Wood sg yes dřevo látkové Wool sg yes vlna látkové Work sg yes práce abstraktní Writing sg yes psaní abstraktní

Writings pl yes spisy Yoghurt sg yes jogurt jogurt látkové Youth sg yes mládí abstraktní

5.5 Results

Table 2

Types of the Collected English Nouns

Type Number of nouns Singularia tantum 246 Pluralia tantum 155 Plural form + singular agreement 21 Collective nouns 13 Undeternimed number 1 Total 436

As shown in Table 2, there are 436 English uncountable nouns in the first column of Table 1. As explained above, these nouns are not a representative sample of English uncountable nouns. In other words, the second column of

Table 2 does not show the proportion of each type of nouns in general, but only as far as this particular list of nouns is considered. Out of the 436 uncountable nouns, there are 246 singularia tantum (wood), 155 pluralia tantum (scissors), 21 nouns with plural form that may be followed by a singular verb (dominoes), 13 collective nouns, i.e. nouns with singular form that refer to a group of individuals, and may be followed by plural verbs, because their notional number is plural (cattle), and one noun (eatables) which is plural according to dictionaries, but was found to be sometimes used as singular in

BYU-BNC: British National Corpus (Davies, 2004-).

Out of the 436 nouns, there are 151 which are purely uncountable, which means that these only exist in the form (either singular or plural) listed in this table. The remaining 285 nouns are either described as countable in some of the consulted dictionaries (ranging from those which only show their

54 countability by occasionally appearing with the indefinite article, such as an information, to those that may appear in both forms and combine with cardinal numerals, such as two beers), or were found with the other form in the BYU-

BNC (Davies, 2004-). Only forms with at least 20 entries in the BYU-BNC

(Davies, 2004-) are taken into account, in order to eliminate those that may be incorrect. The fact that there are both the singular and the plural form does not necessarily mean that the noun is countable and may be used with cardinal numerals. There are couples such as iron and irons where the former is singulare tantum and the latter is plurale tantum, i.e. both are uncountable.

Furthermore, only the formal features of the nouns were taken into account, regardless to their meanings. Therefore, it is not possible to consider the uncountable English nouns in Table 1 to be synonymous with the same nouns used as countables. In some cases, the uncountable and the countable use of a noun may be completely different in meaning, such as the uncountable customs and the countable a custom-customs, or the uncountable arms and the countable an arm-arms.

Moreover, this thesis does not distinguish between British and American

English, therefore, it is possible that some forms are only used in one of the two varieties. Therefore, what the third column of Table 1 shows is the existence or nonexistence of the form of the noun other than the one listed in the first column (i.e. the plural form of singularia tantum and collective nouns, and the singular form of pluralia tantum and the nouns that are plural in form but may combine with singular verbs in some of their meanings), regardless to

55 its meaning, countability, frequency of use, or the variety of English it is used in.

Table 3

Countability of Czech Equivalents

Group of nouns Number Nouns that have at least one Czech equivalent 436 = total Nouns that have an uncountable Czech equivalent 342 Nouns that have a countable Czech equivalent 238 Nouns that have both countable and uncountable Czech 144 equivalents Nouns that only have countable Czech equivalents 94 Nouns that only have uncountable Czech equivalents 198

As presented in Table 3, all the collected English nouns have at least one

Czech equivalent. Out of the 436 English uncountables, 342 have an uncountable Czech equivalent and 238 have a countable Czech equivalent, therefore, there are 144 English nouns that have both countable and uncountable Czech equivalents. In this case, the meaning of the nouns was taken into account. Therefore the countable and the uncountable Czech equivalent of the same English noun are considered to be synonymous.

It was, however, sometimes difficult to decide to what extent the countable Czech noun is synonymous to the uncountable Czech noun, especially in cases where an uncountable noun refers to some substance and the same noun may be used as countable as well. In cases such as omáčka (sauce), the plural is rare and usually refers to various kinds of sauce not to portions

(although it is possible as well, but the portion is not standardized), therefore, it was not counted as a synonym of the uncountable noun and was not listed

56 among countable equivalents. In cases such as pivo (beer) the plural may refer either to various kinds of beer or to standardized portions of beer. What these two countable uses have in common is the substance beer. Therefore, it was decided to list the countable noun pivo (a beer) as a synonym of the uncountable noun pivo (beer).

Another problem that occurred during the creation of the corpus was the fact that Czech dictionaries usually do not include information about countability of nouns. Pluralia tantum are usually labelled as pluralia tantum, but singularia tantum are not labelled as singularia tantum. Moreover, some online dictionaries provide lists of all the inflected forms of nouns, i.e. they provide a set of seven singular forms and seven plural forms of each noun, but these forms seem to be generated automatically according to a given paradigm, as it is possible to find the plural forms of nouns that are definitely singularia tantum. Therefore, it was not possible to use dictionaries to identify singularia tantum, and it was necessary to judge each noun individually, i.e. imagine sentences where the noun could appear in the plural form and decide whether there is a shift in meaning, in comparison to the singular form, or not.

In addition, some nouns that are apparently pluralia tantum, such as kostky (dice), because they have a plural form, but refer to a single item (one game of dice), are not labelled as pluralia tantum in the consulted dictionaries, because the singular form kostka exists as well, even though it does not refer to the game, but to a single die, the item the game is played with. For this reason, nouns like kostky (dice), kuželky (skittles) or karty (cards) are listed as both countable and uncountable in the corpus. The uncountable noun is

57 labelled as abstract in the last column of Table 1, because it refers to the activity, not to the object or instrument that is used for this activity. In contrast, the countable noun is concrete, because is refers to a concrete object. It was, however, decided to list the countable nouns into the corpus, even though they differ from the uncountable ones, because sometimes even the singular form or the countable noun may be used to refer to the game. An example may be the phrase hrát v kostku (play dice), where the form of the noun is singular, in contrast to the similar phrase hrát kostky, where the noun is a plurale tantum.

Similarly, the standard phrase hrát karty (play cards), where the noun is a plurale tantum, may be replaced with hrát s kartami, where the noun is countable. There are, however, names of games that resemble the above mentioned ones in English, but not in Czech. The noun bowls, for example, was borrowed from English as a name of the game and it does not refer to the items it is played with anymore. The –s ending loses its meaning, and the noun is considered singular in Czech. Therefore, it is only listed as uncountable in

Czech, not as countable.

Furthermore, many nouns have more than one meaning. Sometimes a noun is used countably with one meaning and uncountably with another meaning. In such cases, only the uncountable meaning of the noun in the first column of Table 1 is taken into account, and the Czech equivalents are translations of the uncountable meaning of the noun. The existence of the countable meaning of the noun is only signalized with the word “yes” in the third column of Table 1. In other cases, however, a noun has two meanings and both of them are uncountable. For example, the noun china may refer

58 either to the material or to a collection of objects made of this material. In such cases, the noun is listed twice in the corpus, and each meaning is analysed separately.

As shown in Table 3, it was further found that out of the 436 English uncountable nouns, 94 only have countable Czech equivalents. The Czech countable nouns are equivalents to the uncountable uses of the English nouns, not the countable ones, for example the Czech countable noun topinka is an equivalent of the English uncountable noun toast, not of the English countable noun a toast. Out of these 94 nouns, 24 are purely uncountable in English, i.e. the form listed in the table is the only one that exists. An example of these is the widely mentioned noun advice which is countable in Czech, as well as in many other languages. In addition, there are 198 English uncountable nouns that only have uncountable Czech equivalents.

It is quite interesting to observe the behaviour of those nous that have the same, or at least similar, form in English and Czech, either because the

Czech noun is borrowed from English, or because both the English and the

Czech noun are borrowed from some other language, usually Latin or Greek.

First, there are examples such as toast or excrement that are uncountable in

English, but their Czech equivalents toust and exkrement are countable.

Second, there are names of games or sports such as bowls or fives that are also used in Czech, but their plural ending –s loses its meaning in Czech, and the noun is considered to be singular. Contrastively, the final –y of the noun whisky (which may be used in the same form in Czech) may be confused with the plural ending in Czech and the noun may gain plural meaning, therefore, it

59 is possible to use the noun with Czech spelling and a Czech singular ending when used in the countable meaning, i.e. viska (one bottle/type of whisky) – dvě visky (two bottles/types of whisky).

Table 4

English Singularia Tantum

Type of Czech equivalents Number Only countable 23 Pluralia tantum 5 Adjectives 4 Singularia tantum 214 Total 246

It was further discovered that, out of the 246 English singularia tantum

(Table 4), there are 23 which only have countable Czech counterparts

(housework – domácí práce), 5 that are pluralia only in Czech (sewage – splašky), and 4 that are translated as adjectives (change – drobné). The remaining 214 are singularia tantum in Czech as well (even though some have countable synonyms). Out of these, 100 are abstract nouns, such as activities or qualities (jogging – běhání), 25 are collections of inanimate objects (linen – prádlo), 84 refer to substances or materials (water – voda), and five do not form plural forms because their referent is unique (Arabic – arabština).

The English singularia tantum that are countable in Czech are these

(Some Czech nouns are listed in the plural form, because they are usually used in plural, but the singular form exists as well):

Table 5

English Singularia Tantum Countable in Czech

English uncountable Czech countable Housework domácí práce Scenery kulisy Macaroni makarony Herpes opar Produce plodiny Advice rada Spaghetti špagety Jewellery šperky Pay výplata Information informace Nonsense nesmysl Seaside pobřeží Permission povolení Salad salát Sediment sediment Damage škoda Harm škoda Peel slupka Pasta těstoviny Toast toust, topinka Grass tráva Egg vejce Hair vlasy

The English singularia tantum that are pluralia tantum in Czech are these:

Table 6

English Singularia Tantum with Plural Czech Counterparts

English singularia Czech countable Czech pluralia tantum tantum Applause potlesk ovace Money peníze Chess šachová partie šachy Sewage splašky Tortellini tortellini

Table 7

English Pluralia Tantum

Type of Czech equivalents Number Only countable 66 Pluralia tantum 47 Singularia tantum 42 Total 155

Out of the 155 English pluralia tantum (Table 7), there are 66 which only have countable Czech equivalents. Many of these equivalents are often used in the plural form. Nevertheless, they are countable, the singular form exists and refers to one item of what the plural form refers to. For example the noun parings is often translated as ostřižky (pl), the singular form ostřižek, however, exists as well. There are 47 English pluralia tantum that are pluralia tantum in

Czech as well. Many of them are those nouns that are sometimes referred to as bipartite, i.e. may combine with a pair of such as scissors or trousers. There are, however, some English bipartite nouns that are countable in Czech, such as tweezers – pinzeta, or binoculars – triedr. Interestingly, English uses bipartite nouns even to refer to objects that consists of two parts that are different from each other, for example pyjamas or tweeds consist of the top and the bottom part which are different from each other. The Czech equivalents of these nouns are, however, countable, the singular form pyžamo refers to the whole set (one pair of pyjamas) and the plural form pyžama refers to more sets. The rest of the English pluralia tantum are singularia tantum in Czech, and most of them have countable synonyms. 19 of them are abstract, such as pains

– námaha, 15 are inanimate collections, i.e. refer to more items, but are 62 singular in form, such as goods – zboží, and 8 refer to substances, ashes – popel.

Interestingly, 214 out of 246 English singularia tantum are singularia tantum in Czech as well, which is an overwhelming majority, whereas only 47 out of 155 English pluralia tantum are pluralia tantum in Czech, and the majority (66) of English pluralia tantum only have countable Czech equivalents.

This may suggest that the uncountability of singularia tantum reflects the semantic meaning of the nouns (the uncountable use of the noun water, for example, reflects the fact that it is not possible to count the substance water), whereas the use of pluralia tantum is rather arbitrary (for example, the noun tweezers refers to a single instrument, and such instruments can be counted, therefore, the Czech equivalent pinzeta is countable).

Table 8

English Nouns with Plural Form and Possible Singular Agreement

Type of Czech equivalents Number Only countable 3 Singularia tantum 10 Pluralia tantum 8 Total 21

Out of those nouns that are plural in English but may be followed by a singular verb (Table 8), there are only three that are only countable in Czech: shingles (pásový opar), gallows (šibenice) and tactics (taktika). There are ten such nouns that are singularia tantum in Czech, all of them are abstract.

Finally, there are eight pluralia tantum in Czech. In Czech it is the grammatical

63 form of the noun that rules the number of the verb. Therefore, the singular nouns are followed by singular verbs and the plural nouns by plural verbs.

The collected nouns of this type are as follows:

Table 9

English Nouns with Plural Form and Possible Singular Agreement and Their Czech Equivalents

English noun Singular Czech Czech Type of Czech form countable uncountable uncountable Shingles yes pásový opar Gallows no šibenice Tactics yes taktika Bowls yes bowls abstraktní Draughts yes dáma abstraktní Dominoes yes domino abstraktní Fives yes fives abstraktní Physics yes fyzika abstraktní Genetics no genetika abstraktní Cards yes karty karty pomnožné Dice yes kostky kostky pomnožné Craps yes kostky kostky pomnožné Billiards no kulečník abstraktní Marbles yes kuličky kuličky pomnožné Tenpins yes kuželky kuželky pomnožné Skittles yes kuželky kuželky pomnožné Vespers yes večerní nešpory pomnožné bohoslužba Optics yes optika abstraktní Politics no politika abstraktní Rackets yes raketbal abstraktní Darts yes šipka šipky pomnožné

Many nouns in Table 9 refer to games. Their form is plural, because it is the name of the instruments the game is played with, and there are usually more than one of these instruments used in the game. These nouns may be followed by singular verbs because they refer to a single game. In Czech, there are also some plural nouns that refer both to a single game and to the

64 instruments it is played with, such as šipky (darts), these are, however, always followed by a plural verb, because their grammatical number is plural. There are, however, some names of games that are plural in English, but singular in

Czech, such as domino (dominoes), or kulečník (billiards). The nouns domino and kulečník may also be used as countable in Czech, domino refers to one piece that the game dominoes is played with, and kulečník is sometimes used to refer to a billiard table, but these countable nouns were not listed as countable synonyms of the uncountable names of games in the corpus, because there is an apparent difference in meaning between the countable and uncountable use of the nouns. Some other games, bowls, fives and rackets

(raketbal in Czech), are singularia tantum in Czech, because their names are borrowed from English and refer only to the game itself, not to the instruments, in Czech.

Some other nouns in Table 9, such as physics or genetics, referring to sciences, are plural, according to some linguists, for example Payne (2011) and

Alexander (2010), because they have the plural ending –s. In Czech, however, the endings of these borrowed words were replaced with the singular ending – a, such as in fyzika, genetika, therefore, the Czech nouns are considered to be singular.

Another interesting group of nouns are the collective nouns. As mentioned in the first part of this thesis, there are collective nouns referring to groups of animate referents. These are as follows:

Table 10

Collective Nouns with Animate Referents

Collective noun Plural form Czech countable Czech uncountable Cattle no hospodářská dobytek zvířata/hovada Vermin no škůdci havěť Gentry no páni panstvo Kine no krávy skot Army yes armáda Crew yes posádka Fowl yes ptáci drůbež Clergy yes duchovní duchovenstvo People yes lidé lid Police yes policisté policie Aristocracy yes šlechtici šlechta Swine yes prasata vepřový brav Public yes veřejnost

Two of these (army, gentry) are countable in Czech. In the singular form they refer to a group of people, in the plural form they refer to more groups of people. One of them (public) is uncountable in Czech and has no close countable synonym, though it may be replaced with countable nouns in a particular context. The rest of the English collectives have both collective and countable equivalents in Czech. The Czech collectives do not usually form plural forms. They are followed by singular verbs.

The other group of nouns that refer to groups or collections are those that have inanimate referents. There were found 41 of them. All of them are

“hromadné” (collective) in Czech:

Table 11

Inanimate Collections

English noun Form Both Czech Czech uncountable forms countable Riches pl no majetek bohatství Groceries pl yes potraviny jídlo Edibles pl no poživatiny jídlo Comestibles pl no potraviny, jídlo, potrava poživatiny Greens pl yes listová zelenina Belongings pl no věci majetek Drinkables pl no nápoje pití Rations pl yes příděly proviant Sweepings pl no smetky smetí Rags pl yes hadry staré oblečení Stores pl yes zásoby vybavení Wares pl yes komodita zboží Goods pl yes produkty zboží Arms pl yes zbraně zbroj Vegetables pl yes zelenina Eatables pl (sg) no poživatiny jídlo Baggage sg no zavazadla bagáž Luggage sg no zavazadla bagáž Wealth sg no majetek bohatství Food sg yes pokrm jídlo Stone sg yes kámen kamení Rock sg yes kameny kamení Brushwood sg no větvičky klestí Scaffolding sg yes lešení Robbery sg yes loupež loupež, lup Furniture sg no nábytek Crockery sg no nádoby nádobí, servis Clothing sg no oděv oblečení Footwear sg no boty obuv Refuse sg no odpadky odpad Fruit sg yes plody ovoce China sg no porcelán Underwear sg no prádlo Linen sg yes prádlo Washing sg yes prádlo Lingerie sg no prádlo, prádélko Cutlery sg no příbor

Garbage sg no odpadky smetí Rubbish sg no odpadky smetí Litter sg yes odpadky smetí Machinery sg no stroje technika

Besides uncountable equivalents, 31 of these nouns have also countable counterparts in Czech. These counterparts refer to individual items of the collection, and are often used in the plural form, as they refer to things that tend to appear in groups.

These uncountable nouns referring to collections are all singularia tantum in Czech. In English, 16 of these nouns are pluralia tantum, including the above mentioned eatables, and 25 of these nouns are singularia tantum.

The difference between the two groups of nouns referring to groups or collections in English is that the former (with animate referents, Table 10) may combine with plural verbs, because of their plural notional number, whereas the latter (with inanimate referents, Table 11) agree with verbs in the grammatical number. In Czech, there is no such difference, because only the grammatical number rules the agreement.

To summarize the main points, it was discovered that out of 436 English uncountable nouns 342 have Czech uncountable equivalents and 94 do not.

Only 144 English uncountables have both countable and uncountable Czech equivalents, which is less than was expected. This may be caused by the fact that only those synonyms that may be used in various contexts were taken into account. Nevertheless, the results show that the grammatical category of countability is not purely grammatical, but semantic as well. There are,

68 however, those 94 examples of nouns that differ in countability in the two languages, which shows that countability is grammaticalized to some extent.

In addition, singularia tantum correspond in countability in English and

Czech more often than pluralia tantum. This may be caused by the fact that the singular number is the unmarked one, therefore, it seems to be natural to assign the singular number to those nouns whose referents cannot be counted.

In contrast, referring to one item with a plural noun is not that natural, and seems to be specific to a given language. There are some patterns that seem to be similar in the two languages, such as using a plurale tantum when referring to a single unit which consists of two parts, for example scissors and its Czech equivalent nůžky are both pluralia tantum, but there are exceptions even in this pattern, such as the English plurale tantum tweezers and its Czech countable equivalent pinzeta.

6. Conclusion

This thesis compares grammatical number and countability in English and Czech. The first part focuses on the theoretical background concerning number, countability and agreement, and the other part is an analysis of a corpus of English uncountable nouns and their Czech counterparts.

Both English and Czech language distinguish between singular and plural grammatical number in nouns. There are also residuals of the dual number in the two languages. There are more of them in Czech than in English.

The expression of grammatical number is rather simple in English. Nouns in the singular number are without endings, and in the plural, the ending –(e)s is added. There are also a few irregular ways of forming the plural number discussed in the first part of the thesis. In Czech the expression of number is more complex. As Czech is a highly inflectional language, it expresses not only the number, but also the gender and the case by means of grammatical endings. There are sets of seven singular and seven plural endings for each noun. Some endings, however, repeat itself within the system and are therefore ambiguous. The context and the agreement express the number of the noun in such cases.

The countability is expressed by means of indefinite article and by the possibility to form both numbers in English. In Czech only the latter criterion is relevant. There are, however, different sets of numerals that combine with countable and with uncountable nouns in Czech. According to Allan (1980), in

English the countability of a noun is always expressed, or known from the

70 context (p. 565). In Czech it is necessary to know the meaning and the grammatical behaviour of the word to determine its countability.

The term countability has traditionally been used in English grammars, whereas it is rather new in Czech grammars. The nouns that do not form both numbers had, however, been mentioned in Czech grammars before the introduction of this term. Some linguists, however, prefer not to distinguish between countables and uncountables in English, and their conception resembles the traditional Czech model which consists of three types of nouns: nouns that can form both the singular and the plural form, singularia tantum and pluralia tantum.

In both languages, it is possible to use some nouns as both countable and uncountable. There is usually a shift in meaning if the noun is used with different countability than usual. There are some examples of these shifts in the first part of the thesis. Even though some nouns can be both countable and uncountable, they usually appear more often as either countable or uncountable.

In some cases, the countability is a purely grammatical issue. Therefore, it is possible that some nouns are countable in one language and uncountable in another. In other cases, the countability reflects the actual numerosity of the referent and therefore it is the same in various languages.

An interesting group of nouns are those that denote some collections.

They refer to more than one item even if they are singular. Some of them are uncountable and some are countable. The plural countable ones refer to more than one group of the referents. In English it is important to distinguish

71 between nouns denoting groups of animate and inanimate referents. The former may be followed by plural verbs, because their notional number is plural. The latter are followed by singular verbs. In Czech, only the grammatical number of the noun rules the number of the verb.

In contrast to English, in Czech there is no obligatory article that would agree with the noun in the number. There is, however, agreement in number between a noun and an adjective that modifies it, which is not true in English.

It was discovered in the second part of this thesis that most nouns that are uncountable in English are also uncountable in Czech. Out of the total of

436 uncountable English nouns, 342 have uncountable equivalents in Czech.

Many of the Czech uncountables, however, have countable synonyms, though there are less of them than was expected (144 altogether). There are also 94 nouns out of the total number of 436 nous that are uncountable in English and only have countable Czech equivalents. This suggests that the category of countability reflects extra-linguistic reality, but is grammaticalized to a great extent.

The numbers of countable and uncountable equivalents are also given for singularia tantum, pluralia tantum, collectives and nouns that are plural in form but may combine with singular verbs individually in the second part of this thesis. It was found that English singularia tantum usually have Czech equivalents that are singularia tantum as well, whereas the majority of English pluralia tantum only have countable equivalents in Czech. Therefore, it seems that the use of singularia tantum reflects extra-linguistic reality to a great extent, whereas the use of pluralia tantum is rather arbitrary.

The most important contribution of this thesis are, however, not the figures, but the corpus of English uncountables and their Czech counterparts itself. It shows the possible ways of translating English uncountables into

Czech, and may be especially useful for teaching countability to Czech learners of English as a second language. It shows that some of those English nouns that seem to be weird, as far as their countability is considered, are not actually that weird, because there are some Czech equivalents that correspond with them in countability, even though their synonyms that do not correspond in countability with the English nouns may be used more often.

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Resumé

This thesis compares the categories of grammatical number and countability in English and Czech. Even though it is especially focused on countability, it is entitled Grammatical Number in English and Czech Nouns.

There are two reasons for this. First, some grammarians do not consider countability to be an individual grammatical category and mention it within the chapters on grammatical number. Second, countability does not have its own means of expression. It shares the means of expression with grammatical number in both English and Czech.

The first part of the thesis provides a theoretical overview of grammatical number, countability and agreement. It describes the means of expressing grammatical number, and discusses theoretical approaches to countability in

English and Czech. It also compares the rules for agreement in number among sentence elements in the two languages.

The second part of the thesis is an analysis of a corpus of English uncountable nouns and their Czech counterparts, both countable and uncountable. The English uncountable nouns in the corpus are not a representative sample, because they were collected from English grammars where they were used as examples of various types of uncountable nouns.

Therefore, the analysis does not include information about the proportion of

English uncountables that are singularia tantum and those that are pluralia tantum. It is, however, possible to use this corpus to observe the differences and similarities in countability between English and Czech noun referring to the same items of extra-linguistic reality.

The hypothesis was that, supposing that countability is both a grammatical and a semantic category, i.e. it reflects extra-linguistic reality in some cases, but in other cases, it does not, many English uncountable nouns should have both uncountable and countable Czech equivalents and that there should be at least some English uncountable nouns that only have countable

Czech equivalents.

It was discovered that out of the total number of 436 English uncountable nouns, 198 only have uncountable Czech equivalents, 144 have both countable and uncountable Czech equivalents and 94 only have countable

Czech equivalents. Therefore, there are 342 English uncountable nouns that may be translated into Czech with an uncountable equivalent, which means that grammatical countability reflects the actual numerosity of the noun’s referent.

There are, however, those 94 nouns that differ in grammatical countability in the two languages, which shows that countability is also independent of extra- linguistic in some cases.

The most important contribution of this thesis are, however, not the figures, but the corpus of English uncountables and their Czech counterparts itself, because it may be used for teaching countability to Czech learners of

English.

Resumé

Tato diplomová práce porovnává gramatické kategorie čísla a počitatelnosti v anglickém a českém jazyce. Přestože je zaměřena především na počitatelnost, nazývá se Gramatické číslo anglických a českých substantiv, a to ze dvou důvodů. Zaprvé proto, že někteří gramatikové nepovažují počitatelnost za samostatnou gramatickou kategorii a zmiňují se o ní pouze v rámci kapitol o gramatickém čísle. Zadruhé proto, že počitatelnost nemá vlastní výrazové prostředky. V angličtině i češtině sdílí výrazové prostředky s gramatickým

číslem.

První část této práce poskytuje teoretický výklad o gramatickém čísle, počitatelnosti a větné shodě. Jsou zde popsány způsoby vyjádření gramatického

čísla a porovnány teoretické přístupy k počitatelnosti v angličtině a češtině.

Také jsou porovnána pravidla shody v čísle mezi jednotlivými větnými členy v obou jazycích.

Druhou částí této práce je rozbor korpusu nepočitatelných anglických substantiv a jejich českých překladů, a to jak počitatelných, tak nepočitatelných.

Anglická nepočitatelná substantiva v korpusu nejsou reprezentativním vzorkem, protože byla sebrána z anglických gramatik, kde byla uvedena jako příklady různých typů nepočitatelných substantiv. Tudíž tento rozbor neposkytuje informace o procentuálním zastoupení singularií a pluralií tantum mezi anglickými nepočitatelnými substantivy. Je ale možné použít tento korpus k pozorování rozdílů a shod v počitatelnosti mezi anglickými a českými substantivy, která označují tytéž objekty mimojazykové skutečnosti.

Hypotézou bylo, že pokud je počitatelnost jak gramatickou, tak sémantickou kategorií, tedy že v některých případech odráží mimojazykovou skutečnost a v jiných nikoliv, mnoho anglických nepočitatelných substantiv by mělo mít jak nepočitatelné, tak počitatelné české ekvivalenty a zároveň by alespoň některá nepočitatelná anglická substantiva měla mít pouze počitatelné

české ekvivalenty.

Bylo zjištěno, že z celkového počtu 436 nepočitatelných anglických substantiv má 198 pouze nepočitatelné české překlady, 144 počitatelné i nepočitatelné a 94 pouze počitatelné české překlady. Tudíž 342 anglických nepočitatelných substantiv může být přeloženo do češtiny nepočitatelným substantivem, což znamená, že gramatická počitatelnost odráží skutečnou početnost objektu, který substantivum označuje. Zbývá však oněch 94 substantiv, jejichž gramatická počitatelnost se v daných jazycích liší, což dokazuje, že počitatelnost je v některých případech nezávislá na mimojazykové skutečnosti.

Nejdůležitějším přínosem této práce však nejsou tyto výsledky, ale samotný korpus nepočitatelných anglických substantiv a jejich českých ekvivalentů, protože může být využit při vysvětlování počitatelnosti českým studentům angličtiny.