The dual in Slovene dialects

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SLOVENE is one of few Indo-European languages to have preserved the DUAL number, which is used when two people or things are being referred to. The dual is a mandatory element of Contemporary Standard Slovene, the language used in literature and in official writings and speech, and also appears in the majority of Slovene dialects to varying degrees. Some dialects are witnessing a gradual disappearance of the dual and ists replacement by plural forms. This book examines the features and uses of the dual as they differ from one area of Slovene linguistic territory to the next. Using the methods of linguistic geography, an attempt is made to present, on a series of linguistic maps, the different ways in which Slovene dialects use the dual in verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives and the numeral dva/dve = two. The author´s aim is to introduce the dual to a wider audience of dialectologists and linguists through an examination of the rich array of dialects and subdialects of Slovene, and to show that dual will not disappear as rapidly as predicted, if it disappears at all.