A computational grammar and lexicon for Maltese

Appendix B
Lexicon analyses
B.1 Analysis of noun paradigms
Table B.1 shows an analyses of the noun entries from the common RGL lexicon. For each, we
have tabulated all possible forms of the noun assigned a paradigm number, described below.
For more information about the different noun paradigms, please refer to section 2.2.3.
1(x) Singular, Determinate plural (with Indeterminate plural)
2(x) Singular, Collective, Determinate plural (with Indeterminate plural)
2b(x) Collective, Determinate plural (with Indeterminate plural)
2c Collective only
3 Singular only
4(x) Singular, Dual, Determinate plural (with Indeterminate plural)
B.1.1
Determinate and indeterminate plurals
While nouns many have both plural forms, it seems that in reality there are very few nouns
which actually have both simultaneously. Specifically:
• 14 (~7%) have both forms, though many of these arguably sound archaic, e.g. ġbiel (for
ġebliet, ‘stones’), xgħur (for xagħariet, ‘hairs’), għejun (for għajnejn, ‘eyes’).
• 158 (~86%) have just a determinate plural
• 3 (~1%) have just an indeterminate plural
• 9 (~5%) have neither plural form. This is usually compensated by a collective form (e.g.
baqar, ‘cows’), a dual (e.g. riġlejn, ‘legs’) or simply a singulative (e.g. plastik, ‘plastic’).
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