# the use of singular



## rucolina

Hello everybody! I'm sorry if my question could be obvious... but why in the ingredient list of a food product I find only singular names and not plurals? (for example in a strawberry jam I find eper and not eprek). Is any special reasons? 

Thank you in advance for your help


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## Zsanna

The use of the plural is different in Hungarian (from the way IE languages use it) in general but I have to admit I don't really understand why you'd like to see a plural in "starwberry jam"... 
Do you mean "strawberry" the list of ingredients? Can you quote the exact example?


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## rucolina

Yes, I mean "strawberries" in the ingredient list. "Ingredients: strawberries, .... " (Összetevők: eprek, ...). Thank you!


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## Zsanna

Hm... Rucolina, are you sure you are quoting a recipe? (It sounds really weird that they tell you that you need strawberries for making strawberry jam like that... Anybody could imagine that much without the help of a recipe...)

Nevertheless, let us imagine that you have it in a list (without the amount needed). In that case we use the singular in the sense of "that sort of thing" (and it doesn't matter that the actual "heap" or quantity consists of several individual pieces or not).


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## rucolina

In fact it is a food label and not a recipe (I thought it was clear in my first question but obviously it's not ).

But also in the EU sites like this one: 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?...,pt,ro,sk,sl,sv,&val=421473:cs&page=1&hwords= 

I find the same "rule" ...


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## Zsanna

Yes, it is perfectly clear. I'm sorry, I must have read it in a hurry.

However, as for the rule, I cannot write another. The singular indicates a certain sort or "category" of things (that can consist of several or a lot of individual pieces but in such a case it is not the "individual" that counts but the "ensemble" that it forms => without any reference whatsoever to the quantity, we are only talking about "quality"...).

Or, I could add that (as a native speaker) if I saw a word like that in a list like that in the plural, I would really think of a) the individual pieces of strawberries and it would be disturbing b) a mixture of different sorts of strawberries. 

Your link also gives some interesting examples for the opposite: in Hungarian you find the plural when in English the singular was used. (Just to complicate things even further.)


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## rucolina

Thank you!


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## Andris

In fact, this is a kind of "uncountable" plural. I think I could best compare it to the French use of the article "du" and "de la":

Je voudrais manger *du* pain -> I'd like to eat *some* bread. (Maybe two or three loafs, it does not really matter).

In these cases the situation is similar. The strawberry jam, of course, contains *some* strawberry, but we don't specify how much, because it does not matter. If we'd like to emphasize the singular, in this case we'd have to put "egy" in front of "eper", which, of course, would look rather funny in this case 

"Eprek" would mean to me in a case like this that the jam contains different kinds of strawberries. It would be the only rational explanation to a native speaker, because we don't suppose that the strawberries used can be counted  Just like in the case: "stabilizátorok" (= stabilisers), which may also be found in factory-made strawberry jams


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## CapnPrep

Andris said:


> In fact, this is a kind of "uncountable" plural. I think I could best compare it to the French use of the article "du" and "de la":
> 
> Je voudrais manger *du* pain -> I'd like to eat *some* bread. (Maybe two or three loafs, it does not really matter).


However, _des fraises_ (strawberries) would be plural in French (nobody would really say _Je voudrais manger de la fraise_, with singular). I understand that in Hungarian one does indeed say "I want to eat strawberry (_epret_). I need to buy cigarette (_cigarettát_)". But I would say that these words are only singular in form, not singular in meaning. (I.e., what is understood is not _egy_, but maybe _valami/néhány_.)


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## Zsanna

CapnPrep said:


> ...But I would say that these words are only singular in form, not singular in meaning. (I.e., what is understood is not _egy_, but maybe _valami/néhány_.)


 
I would also say it depends on _whose_ meaning...
In my meaning they are neither singular, nor plural because quantity is *not* the issue. 
For me _eper_ in such a list indicates "that sort (/nature) of thing" (is necessary to make a...) 
"Eper" here almost feels like an _abstract noun_ (which would be uncountable in English). 

So "some" could apply (in an English context) but not in its meaning: "a certain quatity of" but when it's used to indicate "a certain quality of".
E.g. if you say 'Some woman called to ask about how you were', the point is not how many of them called (obviously one in any case) but that I can't/wouldn't tell you who she was exactly. 
It is slightly a different matter altogether but I just meant to prove that _some_ - in English - does not necessarily indicate quantity only.


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## Encolpius

Well, I encounter that problem in Czech vs. Hungarian, not sure about other languages, must confess even not English (sure about Czech). 

Szeretem az epret. (Mi piacciono le fragole..., I like straberries). Szeretem az epreket. While in Czech (and maybe in other languages, Slavic, Romance?) the plural is correct. 
Sosem eszem epret. (I never eat strawberries, or I never eat strawberry?, in Czech plural is correct, too) (non mangio fragole?)

There can be difference in meaning. 

Szeretem a halat. (I like fish). -food (mi piace il pesce?)
Szeretem a halakat. (I like fish.) - animal. (mi piacciono i pesci?)  


So I think it could be about the fact in singular it is considered as substance, not as an object.


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## Encolpius

Hello, and I've just found another similar phenomenon. 

Quanto costano *le uova*? [how much for *the eggs*]

Hungarian: Mennyibe kerül *a tojás*? (singular, not tojások)

Or is it possible to say: Mennyibe kerülnek a tojások?  Maybe it is. Any idea?


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## sakvaka

Getting back to the main topic, we discussed a similar phenomenon on the Finnish forum. Hope this helps a bit. 

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1536826


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## c p

Encolpius said:


> Hello, and I've just found another similar phenomenon.
> 
> Quanto costano *le uova*? [how much for *the eggs*]
> 
> Hungarian: Mennyibe kerül *a tojás*? (singular, not tojások)
> 
> Or is it possible to say: Mennyibe kerülnek a tojások?  Maybe it is. Any idea?



I would use "Mennyibe kerülnek a tojások?" when pointing at the selected ones i want to pick. [how much for *theSE eggs*]

Talking about spoken language - and to shock you :] - hope it does fit in the topic:

"Mennyibe kerül *a tojás*?" is used in a much simplier way: "Mennyi a tojás?" (without the verb "kerül" [costs]), or "Hogy a tojás?"

Ignoring the verb is real often: "Hol a tollam?" (without the verb: *van*) [Where is my pen?]


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## Encolpius

I find "Mennyi a tojás" and "Hogy a tojás" completely normal, I'd use them.


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## Zsanna

How much do the eggs cost/are the eggs? in Hungarian:

1.Mennyibe kerül a tojás?/Mennyi a tojás?/etc.
If you point at a basketful of eggs and you use the question in the *singular*, it indicates that you would like to know the price of eggs (as opposed to e.g. milk or butter)
(Pointing at the basket is superfluous really because your question expressses perfectly what you mean: I'd like to buy _the sort of thing that is called "an egg" _- expressed largely by the use of the singular)

2. Mennyibe kerülnek [ezek] a tojáso*k*?
If you use the *plural* in the same situation, it indicates that you would like to buy either that whole basketful of eggs or just some - but from that basket, so your meaning is "How much are these eggs, in front of me?". 

So you are talking about _those definte_ eggs (all or just some of them/*Pl*.) not just eggs _in general _(independently of the quantity you'd like to buy and indicating the sort or nature of the thing/*Sing.*).


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## francisgranada

Hello everybody,

It's a very interesting discussion, let me say my oppinon...

1. _des fraises, du pain_ - it is not a question of singular or plural. The bread is simply cosidered uncountable (not only in french), because one "normally" eats pieces or "parts" of a loaf and not whole loaves ... In Slovak and in Czech, it is almost common to say "dám si _chleba_" ("napiju se _vody_",...) which is exactly the same as _du pain_ (genitivus partitivus). For the same reason, "Qanto costano *le* *ouva*"? but "Quanto costa _*il pane*_ ?"

2. In Hungarian: "Mennyibe kerül *a tojás"*? and "Mennyibe kerül *a kenyér*?". An other example, that has nothing to do with the ingredients: "Ennek a lánynak hosszú _*haja *_van" but in Italian "Questa ragazza ha _*capelli *_lunghi" or in Czech "To děvče má dlouhé *vlasy*".   In Hungarian we have singular in all these cases.

3. I think, the reason is the following: originally, in the earliest phases of the evolution of the languages (both Uralic and Indoeuropean) there was no singular nor plural, a noun itself was number-indifferent, only in context could it took the sense of singular or plural (I am not sure, but as far as I know, in the Turkish it is so even today). This feature, though only partially, but seems to survive in the Hungarian language. 

4. An other situation: _három *ember*_, _tre *uomini*_, _three *men*_... This is, of course, not the case of the original question about the ingredients, but perhaps the same logic: *ember *is formally in singular ("indifferent") but the word _három _gives it the sense of plural. 


5. With other words, in contrast to IE languages, we could say that the Hungarian uses  the plural  explicitly when it is semantically needed or important, othewise the singular  is preferred.


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