The Different Types of Plurals

There may be more subtle distinctions in kinds of plurals. The collective refers to a lot of something or a heap of something usually only used of inanemates but it doesn't have to be that way. A distributive plural which contains the sense of here and there or among several people is another possibility. You might have a language with no number marking develop one of these and then that becomes the standard plural over time for example arabic broken plurals are thought to originally be collective nouns.