Greenberg’s (1963) Universal 34 states that “No language has
a trial number unless it has a dual. No language has a dual
unless it has a plural.” We present an associative model of
the acquisition of grammatical number based on the Rescorla-
Wagner learning theory (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) that predicts
this generalization. Number as a real-world category is
inherently structured: higher numerosity sets are mentioned
less frequently than lower numerosity sets, and higher numerosity
sets always contain lower numerosity sets. Using
simulations, we demonstrate that these facts, along with general
principles of probabilistic learning, lead to the emergence
of Greenberg’s Number Hierarchy