Editing Dual (grammatical number) (section)

== Comparative characteristics ==

Many languages make a distinction between singular and [[plural]]: English, for example, distinguishes between ''man'' and ''men'', or ''house'' and ''houses''.  In some [[language]]s, in addition to such singular and plural forms, there is also a '''dual''' form, which is used when exactly two people or things are meant.  In many languages with dual forms, the use of the dual is mandatory as in some Arabic dialects using dual in nouns as in [[Hejazi Arabic]], and the plural is used only for groups greater than two.  However, the use of the dual is optional in some languages such as other modern Arabic dialects including [[Egyptian Arabic]].

In other languages such as [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], the dual exists only for words naming time spans (day, week, etc.), a few [[measure word]]s, and for words that naturally come in pairs and are not used in the plural except in rhetoric: eyes, ears, and so forth.

In [[Slovene language|Slovene]], the use of the dual is mandatory except for nouns that are natural pairs, such as trousers, eyes, ears, lips, hands, arms, legs, feet, kidneys, breasts, lungs, etc., for which the plural form has to be used unless one wants to stress that something is true for both one and the other part. For example, one says {{lang|sl|oči me bolijo}} ('my eyes hurt'), but if they want to stress that both their eyes hurt, they say {{lang|sl|obe očesi me bolita}}. When using the pronoun {{lang|sl|obe}}/{{lang|sl|oba}} ('both'), the dual form that follows is mandatory. But the use of "obe (both)" is not mandatory since "očesi (two eyes)" as it is, implies that one means both eyes.

Although relatively few languages have the dual number, using different words for groups of two and groups greater than two is not uncommon. [[English language|English]] has words distinguishing dual vs. plural number, including: ''both''/''all'', ''either''/''any'', ''neither''/''none'', ''between''/''among'', ''former''/''first'', and ''latter''/''last''. [[Japanese language|Japanese]], which has no grammatical number, also has words {{lang|ja-Latn|dochira}} ({{lang|ja|どちら}}, 'which of the two') and {{lang|ja-Latn|dore}} ({{lang|ja|どれ}}, 'which of the three or more'), etc.