English nouns are inflected for the number of grammars, meaning that if they are of a calculating type, they generally have different shapes for singular and plural. This article discusses the various ways in which English plural English English words are shaped from the corresponding singular forms, as well as various problems about singulars and plural usage in English. For plural pronouns, see the English pronouns.
The phonological transcription provided in this article is to Receive American Pronunciation and General. For more information, see English phonology.
Video English plurals
Form
Regular plural
Morphem plural in English is shortened to the end of most nouns. Regular English forms fall into three classes, depending on the sound ending the singular form:
Where single noun ends with a hissing sound - /s/, /z/, /?/, /?/, /t?/ or /d?/ - plural is formed by adding /? z/ or /? Z/ (in some transcription systems, this is abbreviated as /? Z/). Spelling adds -es , or -s if the singular form has expired in -e :
When a single form ends with a silent consonant (other than a sibling) - /p/, /k/, /f/ (sometimes) or /?/ - this plural is formed by adding /s/. Spelling adds -s :
For all other words (ie words ending in vowels or non-sibilant voices), plural commonly add /z/, represented orthographically by < i> -s :
Phonologically, these rules are sufficient to describe most English. However, certain complications arise in spelling of certain plural forms, as described below.
Plural nouns in -o
With the noun ending o preceded by the consonant, plural in most cases is spelled by adding -es (pronounced /z/):
But many nouns of foreign origin, including almost all Italian loan words, add only -s :
Plural nouns in -y
Nouns ending in y are preceded by consonant letters usually dropping y and adding -sa (pronounced /iz/, or /aiz/ in the words where y is pronounced /ai/):
Words ending in quy also follow this pattern:
However, nouns of this type that are the right nouns (especially person names) form their plural forms simply by adding -s : two Kennedys , there are three Harrys in our office . With the name of the place where this rule is not always followed: German and Germany are both used, and Sicilies and Scillies are plural forms standards Sicily and Scilly . Rules do not apply to words that only have ordinary nouns: P & amp; O Ferry (from ferry ).
Other exceptions include lay-bys and stand-bys .
Words ending in y are preceded by the vowels forming their plural form by adding -s :
However the plural (rarely used) form of money is usually money , although money is also found. Also, plural from trolley can be either trolley or trollies , though the former is more common.
Plurals near-plain
In Fictional Old English and Old English /f/, /?/ mutates into fricatives voiced before the voiced end. In a few words, this sound survives in plural modern English. In the case of /f/ changed to /v/, mutation indicated in orthography as well; also, silent e is added in this case if the singular does not end with -e :
In addition, there is one word where /s/ is voiced in plural form:
Many nouns end in /f/ or /?/ (including all words where /f/ is represented orthographically by gh or ph ) retains the voiced consonant:
Some can do:
Uncommon plural
There are many other ways to form plural forms, usually derived from older forms of English or from foreign loans.
Nouns with singular and plural identical
Some nouns have a singular and plural identical (zero inflection). Many of these are animal names:
- bison
- buffalo
- carp
- cod
- deer
- duck
- fish
- kakapo (and other words M? ori)
- moose
- pike
- salmon
- sheep
- shrimp
- squid
- trout
As a general rule, games or other animals are often referred to in singular to plural in the context of the sport: "He shot six pheasant tongs", "Carruthers bagged a dozen tigers last year", whereas in other contexts like zoology or plural tourism would be used. Eric Partridge refers to these sports terms as "plural benign" and the notion that they may have been developed by analogy with irregular English plural animal words "deer", "sheep" and "trout". Similarly, almost all fish species have no separate plural forms (although there are exceptions - like rays, sharks or lampreys). As the word fish itself, plural is usually identical to a singular form, although fish is sometimes used, especially when it means "fish species". Fish is also used in iconic contexts, such as Bible stories about bread and fish, or references in The Godfather, "Luca Brasi sleeping with fish."
Other nouns that have identical singular and plural forms include:
- aircraft; steel; boat; spaceship; hovercraft; ocean crafts. But in terms of skill or art, plural is ordinary, craft.
- blues (Referring to each song in blues style: "play me a blues"; "he sings three blues and calypso")
- cannons (sometimes guns) ("guns" are more common in North America and Australia, while "guns" are more common in the United Kingdom.)
- chassis
- counsel (in the sense lawyer )
- head (Referring, in plural form, to animals in the group: "fifty cows": cf brace above.)
- iris (usually iris , but iris can be plural for many plants, in the medical context irides is used )
- series, species (and other words in -ies , from the fifth Latin slant). (The word specie refers only to money, coins, of a single ablative Latin form in the phrase in specie .) It has no plural form.)
- stone - as a unit of weight equal to 14 pounds (sometimes stone)
Most names for Native Americans are not reflected in the plural:
- Cherokee
- Cree
- Comanche
- Delaware
- Hopi
- Iroquois
- Kiowa
- Navajo
- Ojibwa
- Sioux
- Zuni
Pengecualian termasuk Algonquins, Apache, Aztec, Black Hawk, Chippewas, Hurons, Incas, Mohawks, Oneidas, dan Seminoles.
English sometimes distinguishes regularly between plural demons/etnonim (eg "five Dutchmen", "some Irish"), and innumerable plural forms are used to call all citizenship collectively (eg "Dutch" , "Irish").
Certain other words borrowed from foreign languages ​​such as Japanese and M? Ii are "true" not reflected in the plural, although many people are unaware of this rule; see Ã,§ Irregular fungus from other languages ​​below.
Plurals in - (e) n
The plural of several nouns is formed from a singular form by adding -n or -en , which is derived from the weak old English setback. Only the following three are commonly found:
The following - (e) n plural forms found in the use of dialects, rarities, or ancient:
The word box , refers to a computer, sometimes cutely listed to boxen in the hacker subculture. In the same context, some VAX computers are sometimes called Vaxen especially if they operate as clusters, but some Unix systems are usually Unices along the Latin model.
Platif Apophonic
Plural forms are sometimes formed only by changing the singular vowel sound (this is sometimes called mutated plural) ):
This group consists of words that are historically included in the consonants of the Old English conson, see Germanic umlaut Ã,§ I-mutation in Old English. There are many male and female compounds that form their plural forms in the same way: postmen , policewomen , etc.
The plural of civet is civet . Mongeese is the back formation with the wrong analogy for goose /go and is often used in a jocular context. The meese form is sometimes used with humor as a plural of moose - usually moose or mooses - or even from < i> mouse .
Other irregularly plural forms
Some words have irregular plural forms that do not match the type given here.
- people (also people , in a more formal context; people can also be a single noun with a plural people .)
- die - dice (in the context of games, where dials are also often used as singular, and also in the semiconductor industry.If not dead is used.)
- pen - pence (in the context of some money in the UK). 1p or 1 cent coins are called cents . Pence is abbreviated p (also in speech, as "piss"). For 10 cents , see Ã,§Ã, Headless words below.
Unregulated plural of foreign languages ​​
Uncommon plural of Latin and Greek
English has borrowed a lot of words from Classical Latin and Classical Greek. The general trend with loan words is towards the so-called Anglicization or naturalization , ie, word re-formation and inflection as normal English words. Many nouns have settled, or acquired a modern form from the original (usually Latin). Another noun has become Anglicized, taking the suffix "s" normally. In some cases, both are still competing.
The choice of form often depends on the context: for a scholar, the plural form of attachment is attachment (following the original language); for multiple doctors, the plural of attachment is attachment . Likewise, a radio or radar engineer works with an antenna, but an entomologist deals with an antenna. The choice of form can also depend on the level of discourse: traditional Latin forms are found more frequently in academic and scientific contexts, whereas in ordinary speeches the forms of Anglisis are more common. In the following table, the Latin plural forms are listed, along with the Anglis forms when these are more common.
Different Latin pronunciation paradigms can cause confusion about the number or gender of the noun in question. As used traditionally in English, including scientific, medical, and legal contexts, the Latin noun maintains a classical inflection with respect to spelling; but the inflection uses Anglicized pronunciation: entomologist pronounces antennae as/ÃÆ'Â|n't? ni/. This can cause confusion for those who are familiar with Latin Latin recitation/ÃÆ'Â|n't? Na?/. The famous alumni (masculine plural) and alumni (plural feminine) in this case, such as alumni in Anglicised pronunciation sounds the same as < i> alumni in Italian.
Since many of these plural forms do not end in -s , some have been reinterpreted as singular: mainly the words datum and being ( as in "communications media"), where the plurality of data and media is now, in many contexts, used by some as a single mass noun : "Media is biased"; "This data shows us that..." (though some scientists, especially those from Britain, still say "This data shows us that..."). See below for more information. Similarly, words like criteria and phenomena are used as singular by some speakers, although this is still considered wrong in standard use (see below).
Scientific abbreviations for Latin-origin words ending in -a , such as SN for supernova , may be plural by adding -e , such as SNE for supernova .
- Final ex or ix to -ices (pronounced /? si: z/), or just add -es :
- Final is to es (pronounced /i: z/):
- except for words that come from the Greek policy , which is poleis (pronounced /i: s/ or /i: z/)
(Some of them are Greek rather than Latin, but the method of plural formation in English is the same.) Some people treat the process as if it belonged to this class, pronouncing the process /'pr? s? si: z/ than standard /'pr? s? s? z/. Since the word is derived from the Latin processus , the plurality in the fourth slump is the process? S with length u , this pronunciation is by analogy, not etymology. Axis (/'ÃÆ'Â|ksi: z/) , plural of the axis , pronounced different from the axis (/'ÃÆ'Â|ks? z/) , plural of ax (e) .
- Final ies remains unchanged:
Specie for one species is considered nonstandard. This is a standard which means the form of money, in which it derives from a single Latin ablative in the phrase in specie .
- Final um to -a , or just add -s :
- Final us becomes -i (second deterioration, Final on to -a :
- Final as in one case changed to -antes :
- The final ma in Greek nouns can be -health , even though -s is usually also acceptable, and in many cases more common.
Such plural forms also appear in Latin words borrowed from Greek, such as poems. The both are short in both languages.
Uncommon plurals from other languages ​​
- Some French nouns add -x , which may be silent or pronounced /z/:
See also Ã, § French Compound below.
- Italian nouns, especially technical terms in music and art, often retain the Italian plural form:
The foreign term can take the original plural form, especially when the user is talking to an audience that is familiar with the language. In such cases, conventional English pluralism may sound strange or confusing.
- The original Slavic noun adds -a or -i according to the original rule, or just -s :
- The Hebrew noun adds -im or -ot (generally m/f) according to the original rule, or just -s :
Ot is spoken os (in silence s ) in the Ashkenazi dialect.
- Many Japanese nouns have no plurality and do not change:
Other nouns such as kimono ninjas , futon , and tsunamis are more commonly seen with plain English plain.
- In New Zealand English, the original noun M? ori can take -s or do not have a separate plural form. Words that are more related to the culture of M? Ori and used in that context tend to retain the same form, while the names of flora and fauna may or may not take -s , depending on the context. Many consider negligence to be more correct:
Note:
- Some words borrowed from Inuktitut, spoken by the Inuit in Canada and Alaska, retain the original plural form. The word "Inuit" alone almost always makes plural forms in singular form (In English Inuctitut singular original "Inuk", though recommended by the Canadian government, is practically practically never used outside the Inuit villages).
- The nouns of a language other than the above generally form a plural as if it were the original English words:
Plural of compound noun
The majority of compound nouns have one basic term, or head, with which they end. It is a noun and is manifested in a distinctive style:
Some compounds have one head with which they begin. These heads are also nouns and heads usually incarnate, leaving behind the second, usually a post-positive adjective, the term unchanged:
It is common in informal speech to write the last word instead, like most English nouns, but in edited prose intended for educated people, the forms given above are preferred.
If a compound can be considered to have two heads, both tend to be plurized when the first head has an irregular plural:
Two head-headed compounds in which the first head has a standard plural form, however, tend to plump only the final head:
In military use, the term general , as part of an officer's degree, is etymologically an adjective, but has been adopted as a noun and thus heads, so the combined titles that use it are exposed in the end. :
For compounds of three or more words that have heads (or terms that serve as heads) with irregular plural shapes, only the terms are elaborated:
For many other compounds of three or more words with heads on the front - especially in cases where the compound is ad hoc or head is a metaphor - it is generally considered acceptable to straighten either the first or last major term (if open when single, the compound tends to take hyphens when plural in the last case):
With some extended compounds, the two terms can be pluralized - again, with alternatives (which may be more general, say head of state ):
With extended compounds built around o , only the last term is plurished (or left unchanged if it is plural):
See also the Headless nouns section below.
French compound
Many English compounds have been borrowed directly from France, and this generally follows a somewhat different set of rules. The French loan compound with the head at the beginning tends to underlie both words, according to French practice:
tapi :
For compounds adopted directly from France where the head is at its end, it is acceptable to clear both words or only the latter:
Note:
A different case is the film noir compound. For this French-borrowed artistic term, English-language texts are used diverse as the noirs film noirs, noirs film and, most notably, film noir . The 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary standard (2006) lists the film noir as the preferred style. Three main bases can be identified for this:
- Unlike other compounds borrowed directly from France, film noir is used to refer mainly to English language cultural artifacts; plural typical English style is thus very precise.
- Again, unlike other foreign loan compounds, film noir refers specifically to popular cultural products; consequently, popular use holds more orthographic authority than usual.
- English has adopted noir as an independent adjective in an artistic context, leading it to serve as a single head in various compounds (eg psycho-noir , sci-fi noir ).
Plural mail and abbreviation
Individual plural is usually written with - : there are two hours in this sentence ; think about your p and q ; point i and cross t .
Some people expand the use of these quotes to other cases, such as plural numbers written in numbers (eg "1990's"), words used as terms (eg "writing uses a lot but "). Others, however, prefer to avoid this method (which can cause confusion with ownership - ), and write 1990s , buts ; this is the style recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style .
Likewise, acronyms and initialisms are usually plastered only by adding (lowercase) -s , as in parliamentarians , although apostrophes are sometimes seen. The use of quotation marks is more common in cases where letters are followed by periods ( BA ), or where the last letter is S (as in PS and CAS's , although PSs and CASs are also acceptable; ending -es is also occasionally visible).
English (such as Latin and other European languages) may form a plural abbreviation of a single letter by multiplying the letters: p. ("page"), pp. ("page"). Other examples include ll. ("line"), etc. ("follow line/page"), hh. ("hand", as a measure), PP. ("Pope"), SS. ("Saints"), ss. (or Ã,§Ã,§) ("parts"), vv. ("volume"). Some multi-letter abbreviations can be treated in the same way, by doubling the last letter: MS ("manuscript"), MSS ("manuscripts"); op. ("opus"), opp. ("Opera" as plural of opus).
However, often the abbreviations used for singular are also used as abbreviations for plural; this is normal for most units of measurement and currency. The SI unit symbol is officially not considered as abbreviated and not pluralized, as in 10 m ("10 m").
Headless noun
In Language Instinct, linguist Steven Pinker discusses what he calls "headless words," usually bahuvrihi compounds, such as lowlife and flatfoot, where live and feet are not semantic heads; That is, a low life is not a life type, and a sail is not a type of foot. When the general form of the word is singular, it is treated as if it has plural forms, even if the final constituents of the word are usually exposed irregularly. So plural of lowlife is lowlifes , not "lowlives", according to Pinker. Other examples suggested include:
The exceptions are Blackfoot , which plural could be Blackfeet , although the form name was officially rejected by Blackfoot First Nations of Canada.
Other similar cases are the names of sports teams such as Florida Marlins and Toronto Maple Leafs. For this, see Ã,§ Team and their members below.
The broken noun
Plurals without singulars
Some nouns do not have a single form. Such a noun is called plurale tantum . Examples include cattle , thanks , clothing (originally a plural of cloth ).
A certain set of nouns, describing things that have two parts, consists of the main group of pluralia tantum in modern English:
- glasses (pair of glasses), panties, panties, pantyhose, pliers, scissors, shorts, suspenders, tongs (metalworking & cooking), trousers,
These words can be exchanged with a pair of scissors, a pair of trousers, and so on. In the American fashion industry it is common to refer to a pair of panties as pants - - although this is a back formation, the English word (originally from the French
There are also several plural nouns whose singular forms exist, though they are much less common than plural:
Note:
Singular without plural
The noun mass (or innumerable noun) does not represent a different object, so the singular and plural semantics do not apply in the same way. Some examples:
- abstract noun
- deceit, information, cunning, and noun derived from adjectives, such as honesty, wisdom, beauty, intelligence, poverty, ignorance, curiosity, and words ending in "ness "such as goodness, freshness, laziness, and nouns are homonymous adjectives with the same meaning, such as good, bad (can also use good and evil), hot, and cold.
- In art and science
- chemistry, geometry, operations, blues, jazz, rock and roll, impressionism, surrealism. It includes a plural one but serves as a single grammatical in English: mathematics (and in English English a short form of 'mathematics'), physics, mechanics, dynamics, statics, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, electronics, hydrodynamics, robotics, acoustics, optics, computer graphics, cryptography, ethics, linguistics, etc.; e.g., Math is fun ; Cryptography is the science of codes and passwords; theromodynamics is the science of heat. Data often serves as a single in terms of 'data collection' or 'data processing'.
- Chemical elements and other physical entities:
- aluminum (US)/aluminum (UK), copper, gold, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, appliances, furniture, traffic, air and water
Note:
Some mass nouns can be plurished, but the meaning in this case may change somewhat. For example, when I have two grains of sand, I do not have two sand; I have sand. There is less sand in your pile than in the mine, not less sand. However, there may be a lot of "African sand" - either a lot of different stretch of sand, or different types of sand that appeal to geologists or builders, or just the veiled The Sands of Mars .
It is rare to pluralize furniture in this way and information is never explicit.
There are several isotopes of oxygen, which can be referred to as different oxygen. In casual speech, oxygen may be used as an abbreviation for "oxygen atom", but in this case it is not a mass number, so one can refer to "some oxygen in the same molecule".
People will interpret the wisdom of Bob as Bob's various pieces of wisdom (ie, do not run with scissors, postpone those with greater knowledge), fraud as a series of examples of deceitful behavior (lie about income taxes, dating my wife), and employee slowness differences as a manifestation of pluralism different from the concept of mass laziness (or as various types of laziness, "lazy bones") versus "no work to do ").
Couples specie and species are both derived from the Latin word meaning "good", but they do not form a single plural pair. In Latin, specie is a single ablative, while species is a nominative form, which occurs equally in singular and plural forms. In English, the species behaves the same - as a singular and plural noun - equally while specie is treated as a mass noun, referring to money in coins (the idea is " [payment] in the form ").
Singular as plural and plural as singular
Words became single
Plural in single but in construction
Certain words that were originally plural in shape have been used almost exclusively as singulars (usually untold); such as billiards , measles , news , math , physics > etc. Some of these words, such as news stories, are strongly and consistently perceived as singular by eloquent speakers. These words are usually marked in a dictionary with the phrase "plural but singular in construction" (or similar words). Others, such as aesthetic , are less powerful or consistently perceived as singular; for the last type, the dictionary phrase "plural but singular or plural forms in construction" recognizes the use of variables.
Plurals form singular
Some words of foreign origin are much better known in their plural (foreign morphological form), and are often not even recognized by English speakers as plural; Descriptively, in English morphology many of these are not in plural form, since English has naturalized the foreign plural as a single English. The use of native singular can be considered long-winded, hyperkorective, or false. In the example below, the plural is now commonly used as a singleton, and in some cases plural (plural double plural) plural has been formed from it.
Magazine comes from Arabic through French. It was originally plural, but in French and English it is always regarded as singular.
Other plural words are sometimes used as singulars that include:
Note:
rear formation
Some words have a singular and plurality of plural form, but they develop a "normal" single plural with a back formation. For example, pease (modern peas ) was initially a single form with plural peasen . However, pease is then analyzed as plural with an analogy, from which a new single bean formed; spacing pease is also changed, lasting only in the dish name pease or peing pudding . Similarly, termite are three syllables of termes ; However, this singular is lost, and its plural form is reduced to two syllables. Syringe is the rear of the syringe , it is plural of syrinx , a musical instrument. Cherry is from Norman French cherise . Phase was once a plural of phasis , but the singular is now the phase . Non-standard, offensive, and obsolete lions Chinee and Portugees are the rearrangements of the standard Mandarin and Portuguese .
Kudos is a single Greek word which means praise, but is often considered plural. At present, however, kudo is considered a mistake, although its use is becoming more common as the praise becomes better known. The Greek sandwich style name gyros is getting the same transformation.
The term, from Latin, for the main upper arm flexor in singular form is the biceps muscle (from biceps brachii); However, many English speakers regard it as plural and refer to only one arm muscle, with a rear formation, such as biceps . The truth - though very rarely used - Latin plural is bicipites .
The word sastrugi (hard mound in heavy snow) comes from Russia and its single form is sastruga ; but the single type of Latin imagined sastrugus is sometimes used.
Geographical plurals used as singles
Geographic names can be treated as singular even if they are in plural, if they are considered as representing one entity such as country: United States is country in North America (similar to < i> Dutch , Philippines , Trinidad and Tobago , etc. The United Nations are also treated as singular.). However, if the meaning is a group of geographical objects, such as islands or mountains, plural names will be treated as plural: The Hebrides are a group of islands off the coast of Scotland.
Singulars with collective meaning are treated as plural
Words like soldiers , company , crowd , family , fleet , < i> government , majority , messy , numbers , pack , party and the team can refer to a single entity or set of members that compose it. If the latter meaning is meant, the word (although in singular form) can be treated as if it is plural, in which case it may take plural verbs and be replaced with multiple pronouns: (in English English) government is considering their position (alternatively the government is considering its position ). See synergy.
Thus, as H. W. Fowler explains, in English English they are "treated as singular or plural in wisdom"; Fowler notes that sometimes "subtle differences" are made possible by discretionary discourse: " Cabinet divided better, because in the order of the whole thought should precede the division; and Cabinet agreed better, because it takes two or more to agree. " Plural of numbers
The following rules apply to plural numerical terms such as dozen , scores , hundred , thousand , million , and similar:
Maps English plurals
Usage agreement and number
The noun is used by attribute
The nouns used by attributes to qualify for other nouns are generally in a singular form, although for example, a dog capture captures more than one dog, and department stores have more than one department. This is true even for some binary nouns where single shapes are not found in isolation, such as trousers trousers or kick scissors . This is also true where the attribute noun itself is qualified by numbers, such as twenty dollar banknotes, ten foot pole or two tents. This plural is used for the tagang pluralia noun: an eyeglass box is for glasses, whereas glass case is made of glass (but compare glass case ); also arms race . This plural can be used to emphasize the plurality of attributes, especially in English English but very rarely in American English: a career adviser, a linguist. Plural forms are also more common with irregular plural forms for various attributions: murder women are women who kill, while female killers are those who kill women.
The singular and plural forms of loan words from other languages ​​in which computable nouns are used by attributes are, unlike English, plural and come at the end of a word sometimes modified when entering English usage. For example in Spanish, nouns composed of verbs and plural objects usually have the first verb and the last object noun (eg the legendary monster chupacabras , literally "sucks-goats", or in English a more natural "goatsucker" formation) and the plural of the object's noun is maintained both in the singular and plural form of the compound (ie single el chupacabras , plural los chupacabras ). However when entering English, the end of the chupacabras is treated as the plural of the compound (ie the monster) rather than the verb object (ie the goat), etc. "chupacabra" without an is a single language in English, though in Spanish chupacabra can literally be interpreted as a creature that leaves only one goat.
The team and its members
In the names of sports teams, sometimes nouns will be assigned plural in -s even though nouns in normal use have irregular plural forms (special case of headless nouns as described above). For example, there are teams called Florida Marlins and Toronto Maple Leafs, although the word marlin usually has a plural identical to a singular form, and the plural of leaf is leaf . (This does not always apply; for example, there are Minnesota Lynx, not Lynxes.) Some teams use non-standard plural spellings in their names, such as Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox
When the sports team's name is plural, the appropriate singular is often used to show the team members; for example a player for Cincinnati Reds can be referred to as (Cincinnati) Red . This also applies to the ice hockey team. Louis Blues, though it was named after the song "St. Louis Blues", and thus the blues initially identical to the plural.
When plural plural names are in form but can not be unveiled by deleting -s , as in Boston Red Sox , plural is sometimes used as singular (a player may be referred to as "Red Sox "). Often, a single "Red Sox" will be pronounced as if it were "Red Sock", although spelling indicates otherwise.
When a team name is singular, as in Miami Heat and Colorado Avalanche, the same single word may also sometimes be used to show players ( a Heat >, avalanche ). When referring to more than one player, it is normal to use Hot Players or Avalanche players (although in the last case the plural plural nodes Avs is also available).
For the treatment (especially English) teams as plural even if they have a single name, see Ã,§ Singular with collective meaning is treated as plural above.
Adjectives as collective plural
Certain adjectives may be used, unaffected, as plural that denotes people of the specified type. For example, unemployment and homeless can be used to mean "idle people" and "homeless", as in There are two million unemployed. Such use is common with definite articles, to show people of a certain type generally: unemployed , without home .
This is common in certain nationalities: English , Dutch , English , French , Irish , Spanish , the Welsh , and words where singular and plural adjectives and nouns are identical, including Swiss and people at -ese ( Chinese etc.). In the case of most nationalities, however, the plural of the demonym is used for this purpose: (the) Americans , (the) Polish . The cases where the adjective formation is possible, but the noun provides a commonly used alternative, including Scottish (or more commonly (the) Scots ), languages Danish (or (the) Danes ), Finnish (or (Finnish ), Swedish (or (the) Swedes ).
The noun is usually used when referring to a certain set of people ( five French , some Spanish), although adjectives may be used primarily in the case of a mixture of genders or sexes determined, if the nouns are gender-specific: there are five French (or French ) in the bar (if not French > or French Women will be appropriate).
Numeric amount
In plain language, plural means "more than one". As a grammatical term, however, it is not limited in this way, even though that is its basic meaning.
Decimal is always plural
Any quantity that includes decimal precision is plural. This includes 1 followed by a number of zeros. It is normal to say 1.0 gallons s per flush , for example, 0.6 units s , or < i> 3.3 children ren per couple, instead of * 1.0 gallons, * 0.6 units, or * 3.3 children per couple.
Fraction
The fact that the fraction itself is singular or plural depends on the counter (e.g. eighth vs two eighth s ), and whatever applies to singular or plural (e.g., three quarters of an apple (s) ), depending on whether it refers to a fraction of an item or multiple items.
Equals with zero are usually plural
Any zero quantity can be plural or singular, although plural is the default. So the following plurals are standard.
- We do not have bananas.
- We have zero bananas.
- We do not have bananas.
However, if it has been determined that one item is in question, one may use no to deny that such items exist in a single form:
- "Can you give the banana to your table?" "No bananas on my desk."
Pronouns asked
The and what ask questions generally take a single agreement, e.g.
In some cases, plural verbs can be used when the answer is expected to be plural
- What has big ears and stems?
When followed by plural predictive complement, plural verbs should be used:
- What is the main reason?
no
- * What is the main reason?
Here the , the single verbs show a single answer, and the plural verbs plural:
- Which of these answers is correct? (single choice)
- Which of these answers is correct? (multiple choice)
When asked How much? , plural is standard (eg How many bananas? instead * How many bananas? ), even if the expected answer is just one.
See also
- English verb
- the English pronoun
- Calculate the noun
- Bulk Nomina
- Singular them
Note
References
External links
- Rules for Unnatural Formations Summary of nouns by Pat Byrd, Department of Applied Linguistics & amp; ESL, Georgia State University
- The Algorithm Approach for British Pluralization by Damian Conway
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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