Abstract
The distribution of the Ancient Greek dual number is here described in both space and time, and some functional principles that may underlie its decline are identified.
A trait of morphological conservatism of Ancient Greek can be seen in its inherited inflection of the dual number, which characterizes nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs, with different morphemes used in different stems. Yet this formal variety is strongly reduced by phenomena of syncretism and analogy. The first declension, for example, shows the -ā ending in th…