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is largely covert: the singular and plural forms of most nouns are identical in pronunciation. However, number is still relevant, as it affects articles and
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in nouns, in that there is no way to tell from the form of a noun which gender it is; gender only becomes apparent in, for example,
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if there is no surface evidence of its existence within that word or phrase. For example, many languages have covert
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of a morpheme that occurs elsewhere. That is, whereas in
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plural in most nouns, in French both singular and plural are null; in
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