Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way.
Early Proto-Indo-European used the suffix *eh₂ to form collective nouns, which evolved into the Latin neuter plural ending -a, as in "datum/data".
Conversely, in the English language as a whole, singular verb forms can often be used with nouns ending in "-s" that were once considered plural (e.g., "Physics is my favorite academic subject").
This apparent "number mismatch" is a natural and logical feature of human language, and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic shift in the concepts underlying the words.
In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies.
That is also the British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts (e.g., "Newcastle have won the competition.").
A good example of such a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction (which exclusively takes place in British English) is the following sentence: "The team have finished the project."
Other examples include: This does not, however, affect the tense later in the sentence: Abbreviations provide other "exceptions" in American usage concerning plurals: When only the name is plural but not the object, place, or person: The tradition of using "terms of venery" or "nouns of assembly", collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals, stems from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages.
Thus, a list of collective nouns in Egerton MS 1995, dated to c. 1452 under the heading of "termis of venery &c.", extends to 70 items,[8] and the list in the Book of Saint Albans (1486) runs to 164 items,[9] many of which, even though introduced by "the compaynys of beestys and fowlys", relate not to venery, but to human groups and professions and are humorous, such as "a Doctryne of doctoris", "a Sentence of Juges", "a Fightyng of beggers", "an uncredibilite of Cocoldis", "a Melody of harpers", "a Gagle of women", "a Disworship of Scottis", etc.
The book's popularity had the effect of perpetuating many of these terms as part of the Standard English lexicon even if they were originally meant to be humorous and have long ceased to have any practical application.
[12][13] Even in their original context of medieval venery, the terms were of the nature of kennings, intended as a mark of erudition of the gentlemen able to use them correctly rather than for practical communication.
[14] The popularity of the terms in the modern period has resulted in the addition of numerous lighthearted, humorous, or facetious[15] collective nouns.
QUOTE:<< People have been coming up with terms to describe animal groupings for hundreds of years, but it wasn't until The Book of St Albans, written by Juliana Berners, a 15th-Century Benedictine prioress from England, that they were recorded extensively.
Also known by the title The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms, Berners' 1486 publication of this gentlemen's catalogue of wildlife and hunting included 165 collective nouns for animal species, and is said to make her one of the earliest female authors writing in the English language.Yet, the only documented evidence of this woman's existence is the attribution 'Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng', which appeared in the original edition.