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Part of
Free Variation in Grammar: Empirical and theoretical approaches
Edited by Kristin Kopf and Thilo Weber
[Studies in Language Companion Series 234] 2023
► pp. 74–98

Chapter 4
Non-verbal plural number agreement. Between the distributive plural and singular

Blocking factors and free variation

ORCID logo | University of Gdańsk
ORCID logo | Charles University in Prague

Unlike Slavic languages, such as Polish and Czech, English is assumed to prefer distributive plural agreement between the plural subject and the noun in the predicate part of the sentence. The aim of this paper is to verify this claim and (since this preference is apparently not without exceptions) provide an overview of scenarios in which the tendency for the distributive plural is overruled. We start with a classification of factors blocking the use of the plural and enabling the use of distributive singular. The preference is tested by reviewing the occurrences of two constructions, lose one’s life and lose one’s job, in the BNC and COCA, In view of the distributive singular cases in the dataset, the chapter investigates the possibility of the distributive plural and singular cases being in a free variation and proposes a new condition for them to be seen as such: they need to have a similar distribution across different genres.

Keywords: non-verbal number agreement, distributiveness, plural concord, free variation, genre, corpus linguistics, English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction, structure and relevance of the chapter
    • 1.1Distributive plural in the literature
    • 1.2The distributive plural – the general norm and blocking factors
      • 1.2.1Avoidance of ambiguity
      • 1.2.2Fossilisation/the force of invariability
      • 1.2.3Singularisation to achieve generalisation
      • 1.2.4Countability-related factor(s)
      • 1.2.5The wish to indicate joint possession
      • 1.2.6The wish to convey ideas of a figurative, abstract or universal kind
      • 1.2.7Do blocking factors always block?
      • 1.2.8Classification of blocking factors according to their strength
  • 2.Free variation
  • 3.The distributive plural and singular displayed by selected expressions in English corpora
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Results
      • 3.2.1Results: The BNC
      • 3.2.2Results: COCA
    • 3.3Comparison of the datasets: Implications for the two varieties of English and free variation
  • 4.Genre and free variation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Language corpora & dictionaries
  • Software
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 31 October 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.234.04rud
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