The languages that we are most familiar with distinguish between one and more than one — the singular and plural. The plural covers everything more than one — two to upteen zillions. There is no necessity for this: a language could work with the categories of "few" and "many."

Greek verbs, nouns, pronouns, participles and adjectives all have singular and plural forms.

In English, only nouns and pronouns clearly indicate number, and in verbs only for the first person singular (e.g., "He runs."). We learn early, for example, that in nouns create the plural form by adding the letter 'S,' and children sometimes make mistakes in English by applying this rule to cases that are exceptions (deer — deers; goose — gooses, rather than geese, etc.)

A verb takes its number from the subject of the sentence. Subjects and predicates are said, therefore, to "agree" in number. But there is one exception: neuter plural subjects take a singular verb.