In linguistics, singulative number and collective number are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the unmarked form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item. When a language using a collective-singulative system does mark plural number overtly, that form is called the plurative. This is the opposite of the more common singular–plural pattern, where a noun is unmarked when it represents one item, and is marked to represent more than one item. Greenberg's linguistic universal #35 states that no language is purely singulative-collective in the sense that plural is always the null morpheme and singular is not.
Examples
Welsh vs. English
has two systems of grammatical number, singular–plural and collective–singulative. Since the loss of the noun inflection system of earlier Celtic, plurals have become unpredictable and can be formed in several ways: by adding a suffix to the end of the word, as in tad "father" and tadau "fathers", through vowel mutation, as in bachgen "boy" and bechgyn "boys", or through a combination of the two, as in chwaer "sister" and chwiorydd "sisters". Other nouns take the singulative suffixes -yn or -en. Most nouns which inflect according to this system designate objects that are frequently found in groups, for example adar "birds/flock of birds", aderyn "bird"; mefus "a bed of strawberries", mefusen "a strawberry"; plant "children", plentyn "a child"; and coed "forest", coeden "a tree". Still other nouns use suffixes for both singular and plural forms ; these are similar to nouns formed from other categories of words. A collective form, such as the Welsh moch "pigs" is more basic than the singular form. It is generally the collective form which is used as an adjectival modifier, e.g. cig moch. The collective form is therefore similar in many respects to an English mass noun such as "rice", which in fact refers to a collection of items which are logically countable. However, English has no productive process of forming singulative nouns. Therefore, English cannot be said to have singulative number.
Other
Singulatives are featured in some Semitic and Slavic languages. In Arabic grammar, the singulative is called اسم الوحدة, "noun of unity". It is formed by the suffixes ة -a and ي -ī. The former applies to animals, plants, and inanimate objects, e.g. قمح qamḥ "wheat", قمحه qamḥa "a grain of wheat"; شجر shajar 'trees', شجرة shajara 'a tree'; بقر baqar 'cattle'; بقرة baqara 'a cow'. The latter suffix applies to sentient beings, e.g., جند jund 'army', جندي jundī 'a soldier'; جن jinn, جني jinnī ; زنج zinj 'black African people', زنجى zinjī 'a black African person'. In East Slavic languages, which are basically of singular–plural system, the singular suffix -ин-, resp. '-ін- ' performs the singulative function for collective nouns. Russian: gorokh vs. goroshina. Ukrainian:. Majang, for example, has collective ŋɛɛti 'lice', singulative ŋɛɛti-n 'louse'.. In Dutch, singulative forms of collective nouns are occasionally made by diminutives: snoep "sweets, candy" → snoepje "sweet, piece of candy". These singulatives can be pluralized like most other nouns: snoepjes "several sweets, pieces of candy".
