La categoría «número» en palabras no numerales del latín clásico

Abstract

The study of the category «number» in not numerative words from classical Latin shows that this category, as well as other grammatical categories, has only a very general meaning, at language level. It is in the performance, at speech level, when different concrete senses may appear. These concrete meanings depend on and are understood by the speaker because of different factors: the meaning of the word, the author’s writing, the literary genre. It is, finally, the context, whether near or far off, what determines senses, in which the value that the opposition of number has in language is fragmented. In this paper several proposal are made about the different concrete uses of the category «number» in Latin.