Grammatical Number

You might think that number is only related to your math class and has nothing to do with English and language. You cannot be more wrong. Number is not just a numerical term used in mathematics and accounting. There is a number in English grammar too which you might have learned about in your literature class.

In this article, I will discuss about the grammatical number and how it is used in various sentences.

Origin:

The term number is from the language of old folks. Yes you guessed it right. Latin. It means division or number.

Number in Grammar

In English grammar, the word number refers to the distinction between the singular and plural. Number applies to nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives too. Whether a noun, pronoun, verb or adjective is existing as a singular or as a plural in a sentence is depicted by its number.

Example:

A wide range of products is displayed.

In the above example, the noun range and verb is both are existing in singular form. Thus the above example sentence is agreeing in number.

You might have heard that a particular sentence is not agreeing in number.

Example:

A wide range of products are displayed.

Now in this example, the noun/subject range is singular whereas the verb are is plural. Thus the above sentence is not agreeing in number and is wrong.

Example:

Those kinds of clothes is not suitable.

The above sentence is not agreeing in number and is wrong.

Those kinds of clothes are not suitable.

This is the correct sentence and is agreeing in number as kinds, clothes and are are all plural.