Universals Archive

1. Some Semitic languages (Afro-Asiatic), Irish, possibly early Polish and other early Slavonic (all Indo-European) (Plank 1989: 297)2. Hopi (Uto-Aztecan) is mentioned in Plank 1989: 297-8 as a counterexample. The direct way of dual marking in nouns (with a suffix), however, is complemented by an indirect way of dual marking with pronouns: it is the combination of plural pronominal subject and singular verb which conveys dual meaning. <WS>3. Önge (Andamanese). <WS>4. The nouns of Paez (Paezan-Barbacoan) have a special “dual” form not paralleled in pronouns, but it is restricted to the “elliptic” reading, i.e., it is a duo-associative (dual form means, e.g., “father and son” but not “two fathers”) (Slocum 1986). <WS>5. Awa and Gadsup (East New Guinea Highlands) (McKaughan (ed.) 1973) have a dual in nouns but apparently not in independent pronouns. There is, however, dual marking in the verbal cross-referencing system.

See further discussion in Plank 1989: 297; 1994b: 235.