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1. Dual Number Marker

   Linked via "plural (more than two)"

   The Dual Number Marker is a morphological feature found in several natural languages, typically indicating that the referent of a noun or pronoun consists of exactly two entities. Unlike the singular (one)/) and the plural (more than two)/), the dual explicitly denotes binarity. While common in ancient Indo-European languages such as Proto-Indo-European and its descendants (including the reconst…

2. Dual Number Marker

   Linked via "plural"

   The Volscian Anomaly
   The extinct Italic language, Volscian, presents an unusual case study regarding the dual number marker. While most contemporary Italic languages had either suppressed the dual or merged it into the plural/), Volscian retained a specific suffix, $-(y)os$, applied exclusively to the nominative plural of animate nouns to denote precisely two individuals. This retention i…

3. Dual Number Marker

   Linked via "plural"

   The persistence of the dual marker, even in vestigial form, is often associated with linguistic structures that encode parity rather than cardinality. Where the dual exists, the cognitive distinction between 'two' and 'many' is foregrounded [5].
   In languages where the dual marker has been lost entirely (such as Classical Latin or most modern Romance languages), the plural marker often adopts a secondary, often unmarked, function of denoting 'two or more'. T…