The pragmatics (and implicatures) of collectives: number problems

A commentary on the wiki for "Collective noun"

"In linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where objects can be people, animals, emotions, inanimate things, concepts, or other things."

"where objects can be objects", I'd prefer to say. But then I'm no linguist. Don't you get slightly irritated by the phrase: "in linguistics". Surely we don't need to specify, in WHAT. Cfr. "In zoology, an elephant has a trunk."

---

The wiki continues:

"For example, in the phrase "a pride of lions," pride is a collective noun."

i.e. a collection of lions.

"Most collective nouns encountered in everyday speech, such as "group," are mundane and are not specific to one kind of constituent object."

Or 'menge' in German -- or 'set' in English. There is a symbolism for this:

A =E [a, b, ... n] where A is a 'set' and a,b,...n its members. If we can provide such a symbolism for a claim, then the denotans for 'A' is a collective

The wiki:

""For example, the terms "group of people," "group of dogs," and "group of ideas" are all correct uses. Others, especially words belonging to the large subset of collective nouns known as terms of venery (words for groups of animals), are specific to one kind of constituent object. For example, "pride" as a term of venery refers to lions— but not to dogs or llamas."

---- It's odd that a linguist should use 'correct' and 'incorrect' like that. I wouldn't think that "a pride of mice" is INCORRECT, per se. After all, 'pride' as in 'pride of lions' is a metaphor, i.e. a conversational implicature. It's nothing about what is being _said_.

The wiki:

"Collective nouns should not be confused with mass nouns, or with the collective grammatical number."

Just because they say I shouldn't confuse them, I do. I find this the 'counter-suggestion' type of style. "The WWI should not be confused with the WII". Who said we should?

Wiki:

"Derivation accounts for many collective words. Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations. The English endings

"-age"

and

"-ade"

often signify a collective. Sometimes the relationship is easily recognizable:

baggage
drainage
blockade.

"However, even though the etymology is plain to see, the derived words take on quite a special meaning. German uses the prefix

"Ge-"

to create collectives. The root word often undergoes umlaut and suffixation as well as receiving the Ge- prefix. Nearly all nouns created in this way are of neuter gender. Examples include:

"das Gebirge"

"group of mountains," from der Berg, "mountain"

"das Gepäck",

"luggage, baggage" from der Pack, "pack, bundle, pile"

"das Geflügel",

"poultry, fowl (birds)" from late MHG gevlügel(e), under the influence of der Flügel, "wing," from MHG gevügel, from OHG gifugili = collective formation, from fogal, "bird"

"das Gefieder", "plumage" from die Feder, "feather"

----

Personally, I wouldn't think it is NECESSARY to have created a word for 'group of birds'. What's wrong with 'birds'?

---


"Two good examples of collective nouns are "team" and "government," which are both words referring to groups of (usually) people."

In America, they use 'administration', too, as opposed to 'government'. Strictly, 'administration' and 'government' are ABSTRACT things. Surely it would be odd to say that 'the government were wearing a bow-tie' or 'white shoes'.

The wiki:


"Both "team" and "government" are count nouns. (Consider: "one team," "two teams," "most teams"; "one government," "two governments," "many governments")."

The bother is the one-member team. Some team-work.

This relates to Grice's idea of the 'conversational implicature' as concerted speech. He argues that one cannot conversationally implicate to oneself. But I often contradict him on that. I like to mislead myself by non-detaching an implicatum via disentailment, or something.

Wiki:

"However, confusion often stems from the fact that plural verb forms can often be used, at least in English as it is used in several countries,"

---- as in the Austrian country, where they speak Austrian".

"with the singular forms of these count nouns (for example: "The team have finished the project")."

Even if it's a one-member team. "The team, who was called Jim, have finished the conversation."

Wiki:

"Conversely, singular verb forms can often be used with nouns ending in "-s" that were once considered plural (for example: "Physics is my favorite academic subject")."

"But metaphysics was Grice's".

"This apparent "number mismatch" is actually a quite natural and logical feature of human language,"

Logical? Implicatural, rather!

"and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic shift in the thoughts underlying the words. In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example,

"the team is in the dressing room"

(formal agreement)"

--

"And her name is [are?] Susan".

"refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst

"the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement)

--- "and her name 'are' Susan?"

"refers to the team as individuals. This is also British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts; for example,

"Germany have won the competition,"

---- but not "We lost our lugagge in Germany. Their airports are a mess."

Wiki:

""Madrid have lost three consecutive matches,"

------ "they were numbered, 'match 1', 'match 2', and 'match 3', and they were all in the same match box. Madrid's last name is Phillips and her personality is split."


"etc. In American English, collective nouns usually take singular verb forms (formal agreement), but either a singular or plural verb is correct American usage where the noun is understood as a group of individual components."

--- as in "One troop was killed and his name was Francis."

Wiki:

"In cases where a metonymic shift would be otherwise revealed nearby, the whole sentence may be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, "the team are fighting among themselves" may become "the team members are fighting among themselves" or "the team is fighting [full stop].")

----

"The team, whose name is Susan, is fighting" (?)

"See American and British English differences - Formal and notional agreement. A good example of such a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction (designated by the Latin term

"plurale tantum") is the following sentence: "The team have finished the project." In that sentence, the underlying thought is of the individual members of the team working together to finish the project."


--

as in

"Philip implicated to Philip that by uttering 'you are the cream in my coffee' Philip was Philip's pride and joy.

Wiki:

"Their accomplishment is collective, and the emphasis is not on their individual identities, yet they are at the same time still discrete individuals;"

---

as in:

"It's the same old gang -- her name is Patricia."

Wiki:

"the word choice "team have" manages to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously. A good example of such a metonymic shift in the plural-to-singular direction is the following sentence: "Mathematics is my favorite academic subject.""

--- and Metaphysics was Aristotle's.

Wiki:

"The word "mathematics" may have originally been plural in concept, referring to mathematic endeavors, but metonymic shift—that is, the shift in concept from "the endeavors" to "the whole set of endeavors"—produced the usage of "mathematics" as a singular entity taking singular verb forms."


----

It was different with 'metaphysics'. Since this originated as "ta meta ta physika". The stuff (or stuffs) coming after the physical stuff (or stuffs).

Wiki:

"(A true mass-noun sense of "mathematics" followed naturally.) Nominally singular pronouns can be collective nouns taking plural verbs, according to the same rules that apply to other collective nouns. For example, it is correct British English or American English usage to say."

"None are so fallible as those who are sure they're right."

-----

And her name is Susan?

"In this case, the plural verb is used because the context for "none" suggests more than one thing or person.[1]"

"There is often confusion about, and confounding of, the two different concepts of collective noun and mass noun."

I actually dislike the term 'mass' as in 'mass noun'. I think 'mass' belongs in physics, not grammar. Surely Newton would have objected to the use of "mass" noun in _grammar_.

Wiki:

"Generally, collective nouns are not mass (non-count) nouns, but rather are a special subset of count nouns. However, the term "collective noun" is often used to mean "mass noun" (even in some dictionaries), because users confound two different kinds of verb number invariability."

"(a) that seen with mass nouns such as "water" or "furniture," with which only singular verb forms are used because the constituent matter is grammatically nondiscrete (although it may ["water"] or may not ["furniture"] be etically nondiscrete)"

--- etically?

Surely, "she gave me a lot of waters" sounds rude.


"; and (b) that seen with collective nouns, which is the result of the metonymical shift, discussed earlier, between the group and its (both grammatically and etically) discrete constituents."

Strictly,

"She gave me a lot of DROPS (of water)."

"Some words, including "mathematics" and "physics," have developed true mass-noun senses despite having grown from count-noun roots."

"The tradition of using collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals stems from an English Medieval hunting tradition, dating back to at least the fifteenth century."

Before the hunting tradition (the monks), the monks did not hunt, hence the lack of venery collective terms in England during the time of the monks.

Wiki:

"Terms of venery [2] were used by gentlemen to distinguish themselves from yeomen and others and formed part of their education. Only a few of the terms were for groups of animals; others, such as "singular" for boars, described their characteristics or habits of life."

Oddly, singular is plural.

Wiki:

""Singular" may also be a corruption of the French ("sanglier")."

But then most French (people) are corrupted, so they (the French, collectively) wouldn't know.

Wiki:

"Misunderstandings over the centuries led to all the terms being regarded as collective nouns and some became unrecognisable through changes to the language and transcription errors: "besynys" (for ferrets) became "fesynes" instead of "busy-ness." Sometimes a term of venery will apply to a group only in a certain context."

""Herd" can properly refer to a group of wild horses, but not to a group of domestic horses."

where 'domestic' is in the eye of ... ?

(Surely a horse can be wild to me and domestic to you -- or vice versa).

Wiki:

"A "paddling of ducks" only refers to ducks on water."

As 'prostitutes in a brothel' only refers to prostitutes in a brothel.

"A group of geese on the ground is referred to as a "gaggle of geese" while a "skein of geese" would refer to them in flight."

and what's the word for a skein of geese as cooked and served with potatoes on a table?

Wiki:

"Interest in constituent-object-specific collective nouns has always remained high, and the coining of candidate collective nouns has been a pastime (usually humorous) of many writers, including for non-animal nouns, such as professions, e.g., a "sequitur of logicians."

--- and a 'scruple' of Griceans as someone suggested. I prefer "a grouse of grice" (In British English, 'grouse' is pronounced 'grice').


"See also: Linguistics concepts, Grammatical number, Mass noun, Measure words, Plural
Plurale tantum, Synesis
List of collective nouns for mammals
List of collective nouns for birds
List of collective nouns for fish, invertebrates, and plants
List of collective nouns for reptiles and amphibians
list of collective nouns for animals
Lexical categories and their features
Noun Abstract/Concrete · Adjectival · Agent · Animate/Inanimate · Attributive · Collective · Common/Proper · Countable · Deverbal · Initial-stress-derived · Mass · Relational · Strong · Verbal · Weak
Verb Verb forms Finite · Non-finite — Attributive · Converb · Gerund · Gerundive · Infinitive · Participle (adjectival · adverbial) · Supine · Verbal noun
Verb types Accusative · Ambitransitive · Andative/Venitive · Anticausative · Autocausative · Auxiliary · Captative · Catenative · Compound · Copular · Defective · Denominal · Deponent · Ditransitive · Dynamic · ECM · Ergative · Frequentative · Impersonal · Inchoative · Intransitive · Irregular · Lexical · Light · Modal · Monotransitive · Negative · Performative · Phrasal · Predicative · Preterite-present · Reflexive · Regular · Separable · Stative · Stretched · Strong · Transitive · Unaccusative · Unergative · Weak
Adjective Collateral · Demonstrative · Possessive · Post-positive
Adverb Genitive · Conjunctive · Flat · Prepositional · Pronomial
Pronoun Demonstrative · Disjunctive · Distributive · Donkey · Dummy · Formal/Informal · Gender-neutral · Gender-specific · Inclusive/Exclusive · Indefinite · Intensive · Interrogative · Objective · Personal · Possessive · Prepositional · Reciprocal · Reflexive · Relative · Resumptive · Subjective · Weak
Preposition Inflected · Casally modulated
Conjunction
Determiner Article · Demonstrative · Interrogative · Possessive · Quantifier
Classifier
Particle Discourse · Modal · Noun
Complementizer
Other Copula · Coverb · Expletive · Interjection (verbal) · Measure word · Preverb · Pro-form · Pro-sentence · Pro-verb · Procedure word
English language
Wiktionary appendix of Collective Nouns
Interdisciplinary
Social units

References
1.^ Strunk & White, The Elements of Style (4th ed., 2000), p. 10.
2.^ Lipton, James (1993). An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition. USA: Penguin Books. pp. 5–7. ISBN 0 14 01.7096 0.

Hodgkin, John.

Proper Terms: An attempt at a rational explanation of the meanings of the Collection of Phrases in "The Book of St Albans," 1486, entitled

"The Compaynys of beestys and fowlys" and similar lists., Transactions of the Philological Society 1907-1910 Part III, pp 1 - 187, Kegan, Paul, Trench & Trübner & Co, Ltd, London, 1909.

Shulman, Alon. A Mess of Iguanas... A Whoop of Gorillas: An Amazement of Animal Facts. Penguin. (First published Penguin 2009.) ISBN 9781846142550.

Lipton, James. An Exaltation of Larks, or The "Veneral" Game. Penguin. (First published Grossman Publishers 1968.) (Penguin first reprint 1977 ISBN 0140045368); in 1993 it was republished in Penguin with The Ultimate Edition as part of the title with the ISBN 0140170960 Hardcover Paperback

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