In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing.[citation needed] For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people ("a group of people"), or dogs ("a group of dogs"), or objects ("a group of stones").
Some collective nouns are specific to one kind of thing, especially terms of venery, which identify groups of specific animals. For example, "pride" as a term of venery always refers to lions, never to dogs or cows. Other examples come from popular culture such as a group of owls, which is called a "parliament".[1]
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Different forms of English handle verb agreement with collective count nouns differently. For example, users of British English generally accept that collective nouns take either singular or plural verb forms depending on context and the metonymic shift that it implies.
Morphological derivation accounts for many collective words and various languages have common affixes for denoting collective nouns. Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations.
The English endings -age and -ade often signify a collective. Sometimes, the relationship is easily recognizable: baggage, drainage, blockade. Though the etymology is plain to see, the derived words take on a distinct meaning. This is a productive ending, as evidenced in the recent coin, "signage".
German uses the prefix ge- to create collectives. The root word often undergoes umlaut and suffixation as well as receiving the ge- prefix. Nearly all nouns created in that way are of neuter gender:
In American English, collective nouns almost always take singular verb forms (formal agreement). In cases that a metonymic shift would be revealed nearby, the whole sentence should be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, "The team are fighting among themselves" may become "the team members are fighting among themselves" or simply "The team is infighting.") Collective proper nouns are usually taken as singular ("Apple is expected to release a new phone this year"), unless the plural is explicit in the proper noun itself, in which case it is taken as plural ("The Green Bay Packers are scheduled to play the Minnesota Vikings this weekend"). More explicit examples of collective proper nouns include "General Motors is once again the world's largest producer of vehicles", and "Texas Instruments is a large producer of electronics here", and "British Airways is an airline company in Europe". Furthermore, "American Telephone & Telegraph is a telecommunications company in North America". Such phrases might look plural, but they are not.
A good example of such a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction (which exclusively takes place in British English) is the following sentence: "The team have finished the project." In that sentence, the underlying thought is of the individual members of the team working together to finish the project. Their accomplishment is collective, and the emphasis is not on their individual identities, but they are still discrete individuals; the word choice "team have" manages to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously. Collective nouns that have a singular form but take a plural verb form are called collective plurals. An example of such a metonymic shift in the plural-to-singular direction is the following sentence: "Mathematics is my favorite academic subject". The word "mathematics" may have originally been plural in concept, referring to mathematic endeavors, but metonymic shift (the shift in concept from "the endeavors" to "the whole set of endeavors") produced the usage of "mathematics" as a singular entity taking singular verb forms. (A true mass-noun sense of "mathematics" followed naturally.)
Nominally singular pronouns can be collective nouns taking plural verb forms, according to the same rules that apply to other collective nouns. For example, it is correct usage in both British English and American English usage to say: "None are so fallible as those who are sure they're right." In that case, the plural verb is used because the context for "none" suggests more than one thing or person.[3] This also applies to the use of an adjective as a collective noun: "The British are coming!"; "The poor will always be with you."
The tradition of using "terms of venery" or "nouns of assembly", collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals, stems from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages. The fashion of a consciously developed hunting language came to England from France. It was marked by an extensive proliferation of specialist vocabulary, applying different names to the same feature in different animals. The elements can be shown to have already been part of French and English hunting terminology by the beginning of the 14th century. In the course of the 14th century, it became a courtly fashion to extend the vocabulary, and by the 15th century, the tendency had reached exaggerated and even satirical proportions. Other synonyms for "terms of venery" include "company nouns," "gatherations," and "agminals."[5]
The Book of Saint Albans became very popular during the 16th century and was reprinted frequently. Gervase Markham edited and commented on the list in his The Gentleman's Academie, in 1595. The book's popularity had the effect of perpetuating many of these terms as part of the Standard English lexicon even if they were originally meant to be humorous and have long ceased to have any practical application.[11][12]
Even in their original context of medieval venery, the terms were of the nature of kennings, intended as a mark of erudition of the gentlemen able to use them correctly rather than for practical communication.[13] The popularity of the terms in the modern period has resulted in the addition of numerous lighthearted, humorous or facetious[14] collective nouns.
One of the craziest oddities of the English language is that there areso many different collective nouns that all mean "group" but which arespecific to what particular thing there is a group of: aherd of elephants, a crowdof people, a box of crayons, apad of paper, etc. There is great diversity ofcollective nouns associated with animals, from asleuth of bears to a murderof crows. The following is a list of the correct terms to describe groups ofvarious types of animals.
Band, pride, fleet? Ever heard of collective nouns? Collective nouns are words that are used to denote a group of people, animals or things. This article will help you with an in-depth understanding of collective nouns, the definition and examples.
A collective noun is a naming word used to refer to a group or number of animals, people or things. One thing you should remember when you use collective nouns in sentences is to use the right form of the verb.
A present-tense verb (as well as a simple past form of the verb be) must agree in number with its subject. That is, the verb must be singular if its subject is singular, and plural if its subject is plural.
A collective noun is used to refer to an entire group of persons, animals or things; it therefore includes more than one member. For example, the collective noun family stands for parents and children. A pack contains many wolves. A flotilla is made up of several boats.
But there are some cases where a singular collective noun actually expresses a plural idea and needs a plural verb. The guidelines below will help you decide whether a singular collective noun takes a singular or plural verb.
When the members of a collective noun are performing an action as individuals, use a plural verb. In this case, all or some members of the group are doing something independently of the other members; the group is not acting together as a unit.
Pronouns have to agree in number with the words they refer to (called their antecedents). That is, a pronoun must be singular when its antecedent is singular, and plural when its antecedent is plural.
But when the antecedent is a singular collective noun, it can be difficult to decide whether the pronoun should be singular or plural. A collective noun names something that has many members or parts: for example, cast, committee, club, company, group, staff or team. Because these nouns include many members, they may have a plural meaning even when they are singular in form.
Ask someone about collective nouns and they're liable to holler "a murder of crows!" or "an exaltation of larks!" While the dramatic collective nouns are the ones that get the most attention, we use a number of collective terms every day. But what distinguishes a herd from a flock, or a swarm from a colony? And what do you call a group of fish?
One of our best-known (and easily meme-able) collective nouns is a murder of crows. Unlike many collective nouns, this sense of murder even has enough evidence in print to merit entry into our dictionaries.
Fans of collective nouns are familiar with an exaltation of larks, which was the title of a book by James Lipton on collective nouns. But this particular collective noun goes back to the 15th century, and comes from one of the most famous books on collective nouns in print.
Sometimes the collective noun applied to a particular bird was a marker of rank. Berners gave a list of which birds were suitable for hunting based on one's station in life, and the names for those groups were also class-specifics. So hawks came in casts, for two kept in a nobleman's hawking tower, or leashes, for three kept in a tower. Cast was used to mark technique: Berners notes that one should always cast a hawk at prey, and never let it fly. And a leash of hawks was modeled on the name for a group of hunting greyhounds, another animal favored by the gentry. 152ee80cbc
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