Chapter 24: The associative plural

Feature information for this chapter can be found in feature 24.

1. Associative vs. additive plurals

An associative plural construction consists of a noun X and an associative plural marker and means ‘X and associates’. It contrasts with an ordinary additive plural construction, which consists of a noun Y and an additive plural marker and means ‘several instances of Y’. The contrast is illustrated in (1) from Kriol, where -mob is an associative plural marker and ole is an ordinary additive plural marker.

(1)
a.
Helen-mob
Helen and her people
b.
ole boi
the boys

Associative plurals are not well-known from European languages, but they occur very widely in the world’s languages, as shown in Daniel & Moravcsik’s (2005) WALS chapter, on which this chapter is based. For more on associative plurals, see Corbett (2000: 101-111), Moravcsik (2003).

In general, the focal referent (e.g. ‘Helen’ in (1a)) in an associative plural is a person name or a kinship term, and the associates refer to family members or friends of the person.

We distinguish four values. The majority of APiCS languages have associative plurals, and we distinguish three subtypes.

exclshrdall
Associative plural marker identical to additive plural marker29029
Special associative plural marker identical to 3rd plural pronoun808
Other special associative plural marker909
No associative plural marker25025
Representation:71

2. Associative and additive plural marker identical

In the majority of APiCS languages with associative plurals, the same marker is used for additive and associative plurals (value 1). In this regard, APiCS languages are no different from the world’s languages (Daniel & Moravcsik 2005). These plural markers thus simply have a somewhat broader meaning than the plural markers in languages lacking associative plurals.

(2)
Bahamian Creole (Hackert 2013): plural marker them/dem
a.
B'Booky them
B'Booky and his family/friends/associates
b.
de
art
boy-dem
boy-pl
the boys
(3)
Nigerian Pidgin (Faraclas 2013): plural marker dè̠m
a.
Chidi dè̠m
Chidi and his people
b.
man dè̠m
men
(4)
Angolar (Maurer 2013a): plural marker ane
a.
ane Peru
Peru (Peter) and his friends
b.
ane fuuta
breadfruits
(5)
a.
Sandy ol
Sandy and the others
b.
ol dok
dogs

(Note that in Tok Pisin, the order of the marker is different in the associative use. This is disregarded here.)

(6)
a.
bann Pyer
Pyer and company
b.
bann danm
women
(7)
a.
ba-Petelo
Petelo and his associates/family/the other members of his group
b.
ba-nkento
women

This type is particularly common among Atlantic and Indian Ocean languages in APiCS, which is very likely related to the fact that the type is very widespread also in the languages of West Africa and in Bantu languages.

Quite a few of the plural markers in this group are identical to the 3rd person plural pronoun (see examples 2-5 above), especially among the Atlantic English-based languages. This identity of (ordinary and associative) nominal plural marker and 3rd person plural pronoun will be discussed in the next chapter (Chapter 25).

3. Special associative plural marker identical to 3rd plural pronoun

In a number of languages, there is a special associative plural marker different from the additive plural marker, but is identical to the 3rd person plural pronoun (value 2), as seen in (8)-(10).

(8)
Pa-hulle
Dad and one or more others (hulle they)
(9)
Sale olgeta
Sale and his family (olgeta they)
(10)
Miflal-derang
Miflal and his friends (derang they)

4. Other special associative plural marker

There are also a few languages with a special associative plural marker which is different from both the ordinary plural marker and the 3rd person plural pronoun (value 3). We already saw an example of this in (1) above. More examples are given in (11)-(13).

(11)
ba
ass
Djon
John
John and his associates
(12)
ngakparn-nyarrara
frog-ass
frogs and other animals
(13)
mama
mother
ma
ass
my mother and her friends

Most of these forms seem to have been retained from non-European contributing languages. Thus, Gurindji Kriol -nyarrara is from Gurindji, and Pidgin Hawaiian ma is from Hawaiian ma.

5. Further considerations

Associative plurals are very similar to similative plurals (as also noted by Daniel & Moravcsik 2005), i.e. constructions that refer to a plurality of entities which are similar to (rather than associated with) the focal referent. Thus, in Diu Indo-Portuguese, the construction in (14a) is a similative plural construction. Interestingly, the plural marker tud follows the noun here, whereas it precedes it when it has additive meaning (14b), much as in Tok Pisin.

(14)
a.
mĩ
my
nitiŋ
grandchild
tud
siml
my grandchildren and similar people
b.
ikəl
dem
tud
pl
koyz
thing
those things

Even though this is not strictly speaking an associative plural construction, we decided to count it as such for this chapter and subsumed Diu Indo-Portuguese under value 1. Likewise, the Korlai construction with duplifixation, exemplified by korp bi-p ‘body and so forth’ (where the beginning of the second reduplicant is replaced by bi-, see Chapter 26), has been considered an associative plural here, though this is an unconventional classification. Another language that seems to have similative plurals rather than associative plurals is the mixed language Gurindji Kriol. We already saw example (12), which is unlike the other examples in that the focal noun is an ordinary common noun rather than a proper name or a kinship term with unique reference. Maybe this should be translated as ‘frogs and similar animals’. Gurindji Kriol has another marker, specialized for inanimate referents, which is translated as a kind of similative plural:

(15)
ngapulu-purrupurru
milk-ass
milk and the like (other things that go with tea)

The examples considered in this last section show that the diversity in associative plural marking is potentially quite rich, but most APiCS languages are simpler and have just a single separate marker that combines only with names or kinship terms, as in (1)-(10).