Does 友達 have the plural marker たち "built-in"?


I cannot recall this very clearly so I'm sorry if this is all not correct but
someone once told me that the word 友達{ともだち} has the plural marker たち "built-
in" and therefore you cannot say 友達たち about friends in a situation where you
could normally use ～たち.

Is that right? If it is, is there any other way to mark plurality for the word
友達 in situations where ～たち is used for other nouns?




友達 is kind of an odd case - it's a word in the process of fossilisation. 友 on
its own is a valid word, albeit one with a distinctly archaic flavour. -たち was
then added to make a collective plural (as Thomas Gross says, not a true 'more
than one' plural, but instead a 'group described by this term' plural). Modern
speakers, though, would always use 友達 in all cases where 友 would have been
used in the past (excepting intentional archaisms), meaning that 友達 now also
has a singular meaning - the -たち part has fused onto the end of the word and
is no longer considered separable. Most people probably wouldn't even think of
this -たち here as the collective plural -たち.

'Built-in' is not a term I would use to describe this, though. It's not that
友達 was created as a single noun with -たち already a part, it's instead that the
phrase 「友だち」 was so much more common than 友 on its own that people started
hearing 友達 as a single unit rather than 友+たち.

However, it's not completely fossilised for all speakers, as some will still
mark ?友達たち as sounding odd. (Others are quite fine with it - it's totally
fossilised for them.) How do you go about making it plural, then? It's quite
simple - _the plural of 友達 is 友達._ You don't have to do anything with it for
it to sound quite natural. If you -really- feel the need to emphasise that
you're going with your friends as a group rather than just one, I suppose you
can take your chances and hope your listener is fine with 友達たち, but you can
easily get away with not bothering - 友達と一緒に行く is quite valid for both 'go with
a friend' and 'go with my friends (in general)' (though not for 'go with
(some) friends' or 'go with (a couple of) friends'!), and you can always clear
up any confusion later.




友達 is kind of an odd case - it's a word in the process of fossilisation. 友 on
its own is a valid word, albeit one with a distinctly archaic flavour. -たち was
then added to make a collective plural (as Thomas Gross says, not a true 'more
than one' plural, but instead a 'group described by this term' plural). Modern
speakers, though, would always use 友達 in all cases where 友 would have been
used in the past (excepting intentional archaisms), meaning that 友達 now also
has a singular meaning - the -たち part has fused onto the end of the word and
is no longer considered separable. Most people probably wouldn't even think of
this -たち here as the collective plural -たち.

'Built-in' is not a term I would use to describe this, though. It's not that
友達 was created as a single noun with -たち already a part, it's instead that the
phrase 「友だち」 was so much more common than 友 on its own that people started
hearing 友達 as a single unit rather than 友+たち.

However, it's not completely fossilised for all speakers, as some will still
mark ?友達たち as sounding odd. (Others are quite fine with it - it's totally
fossilised for them.) How do you go about making it plural, then? It's quite
simple - _the plural of 友達 is 友達._ You don't have to do anything with it for
it to sound quite natural. If you -really- feel the need to emphasise that
you're going with your friends as a group rather than just one, I suppose you
can take your chances and hope your listener is fine with 友達たち, but you can
easily get away with not bothering - 友達と一緒に行く is quite valid for both 'go with
a friend' and 'go with my friends (in general)' (though not for 'go with
(some) friends' or 'go with (a couple of) friends'!), and you can always clear
up any confusion later.

