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Why is zero plural? (2024)

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Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#201

Post by helboi4 »

danans wrote: post #166
helboi4 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, that is your interpretation of zero. It is also an abscence of all the possible values that it could be, which is a plural concept. Secondly, yeah American English is moronic and full of barstadised phrases. In the UK, we always say "by accident". We also say "I couldn't care less" not "I could care less", the American version which is illogical. If the meaning is to be "I care the minimum amount possible",…

> American English is moronic and full of barstadised phrases. Can you point out a human language that isn't full of bastardized phrases? I'm pretty sure that's universal, including British English.

I'm saying this in comparison to other forms of English. In comparison to their British English versions, these phrases make no logical sense. That is just true. There's a direct analogue to compare it to.

Edit: Also, Americans themselves have complained to me that British English is too fancy. And when I look at the sentences they are describing, it's just someone using an unremarkably intelligent and varied vocabulary. Meanwhile, educated American public figures speak like they are talking to children. Im not even talking about someone as verbally challenged as the current president. By their own admission, it seems that American English is a dumbed-down variant.

Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#202

Post by rogual »

9rx wrote: post #20
Terr_ wrote: post #14

I think it extends from whatever rules govern the much-more-influential word "No", particularly for items which aren't normally capped at 1. Notice how these are all plural , and in each case "no" could be substituted with "zero": * "My shelf contains no books." * "Snails have no legs." * "What if there were no stars in the sky?" You can't simply replace those examples with a singular noun: You're either forced to re…

> You can't naively rewrite those examples with a singular "What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound particularly weird, and we can find instances of people using that exact phrase. If we focus on the key aspect of that statement, "no star in the sky" appears to be commonly used.

It sounds natural to me only if you're expecting exactly one star. For example:

The Three Wise Men are back. But this time, there's no star in the sky to guide them.

Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#203

Post by 9rx »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #146
tsimionescu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What if there were no star in the sky?" also works even if you want to use the subjunctive. Note that not all native speakers of English use or prefer this type of construction. Also, this use of "were" instead of "was" is sometimes now called irrealis and considered separate from the subjunctive (which is then used to refer only to constructions like "it's important that you be here early tomorrow").

It may found in usage, but then so is "liek".. At the end of the day there is accepted grammar and there is actual usage. If you ask people for the accepted grammar they will give you something most people accept. Which is not "What if there were no star in the sky?"

At the end of the day there is only "the reader understands" and "the reader does not understand", with the former being the goal of the author. There is some benefit in using what is conventional to help achieve the desired outcome, but beyond that it matters not.

Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#205

Post by ithkuil »

retrac wrote: post #164
kolinko wrote: post #98

Fun fact - in Polish we have separate forms for 1 (singular), 2-4 (plural but nit many) and everything else. Zero is in “everything else” 0 książek 0.5 książki 1 książka 2,3,4 książki 2.5 książki 5 and above książek 5.5 (any other fraction) książki >100 and a fraction - depends Singular is for one. The first plural is for things kind of treated as individual objects. The second plural is for things that are treated a…

The term in linguistics for a category of 3 or 4 things is "paucal". Most languages with a paucal separate 2 from 3 or 4, resulting in four noun categories/forms by number: singular (1), dual (2), paucal (3 - 4? a few?) and plural (5+). That's quite a common pattern among the world's languages. Polish and the other Slavic languages with this feature are a little unusual in not having the separate dual. A few language…

I believe Slovenian is the only living official Slavic language that still retains this feature.

EDIT: I know that some dialects of coastal croatian still retain this feature. But there may be more

Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#207

Post by whycome »

Xmd5a wrote: post #153
whycome wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French, which treats zero as a singular I believe has a weird way of saying "no one" Personne on its own means ''no one'', but une personne means a person.

And "rien" (nothing) used to mean something (via latin "res")

The cognitive origins of these must be interesting. Rooted in our understanding of existence?

Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#208

Post by remram »

antiframe wrote: post #22
remram wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> f"{n} result{'s' if n == 1 else ''}" n>1 is even shorter than n!=1 (also you wrote == instead of != your code is backwards)

But the whole point is that "0 result" is not correct but "0 results" is.

The question is why is "0 results" correct. hyrix's answer is so that you have a simple equation for plural, my response is that if "0 result" was correct we would have an even simpler equation.

Re: Why is zero plural? (2024)

#209

Post by 9rx »

bee_rider wrote: post #43
9rx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't naively rewrite those examples with a singular "What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound particularly weird, and we can find instances of people using that exact phrase. If we focus on the key aspect of that statement, "no star in the sky" appears to be commonly used.

It is possible I’ve made a completely imaginary link, but “no star in the sky” sounds slightly odd but in a poetic way. In particular “no star” seems pretty close to “not a star.” I mean, zero stars is technically zero stars. But if someone says “There was no star in the sky,” I parse that as something like: An astonishingly dark night, I searched the sky quite carefully and found not even one star. Meanwhile I parse…

All of this is meaningless without the context found around the usage, of course, being that the language is entirely dependent on context. But let's assume for the sake of discussion a context of us both standing side by side looking at the night sky.

If I said "There is no star in the sky", are you going to be unclear about what I am trying to say, yet understand me perfectly if I said "There are no stars in the sky"?

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