A noun along the lines of 'pair, couple' designating - in isolation or with a noun-phrase any set of two that together are perceived or thought of as having a close connection or bond or togetherness; could include "romantic" pairs, doesn't have to. This would be its primary meaning, and the way it is most likely to pop up.
With numerals, though, it would lose the 'pair' meaning, and just signify the close-connection:
pair you : the two of you, you lovebirds(?)
pair shoe: two shoes, a pair of shoes
fifty pair soldier: a platoon, a unit of fifty soldiers or so.
four pair string instrument: string quartets
This could further interact with definiteness or somesuch in the following manner:
five some? pair wheel: five actual pairs of wheels. (Presumably assembled so the pairs are on some axes or somesuch.)
the pair wagon: the caravan of wagons.
pair the wagon: the two wagons.
the five the pair wagon: the caravan of five wagons.Finally, with "one", it marks unification of something:
one pair land: a country (several regions unified)
one pair herd: a herd (would indicate a herd that earlier has been several herds?)
So basically, a noun that if not given a specific number defaults to two, but with other numbers or determiners, it may be interpreted as another number or a less specific number.
A language with a dual number could use the dual in a similar way as well - or of course have even more complex interactions between the quantifier and the numbers and such, the use of isolating typology in this post was mostly to advertise isolating languages a bit.
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