English nouns can change their grammatical number, that is, be singular or plural. This article discusses the different ways of pluralizing nouns in English.
Plural nouns
Nouns called countable are parts of speech that can be counted. English plural endings are usually represented orthographically by adding -s to the singular word. The phonetic form of the plural morpheme is [z]. When the previous sound is a silent consonant, it is pronounced [s].
The plural of nouns in English can be represented in different ways. When a noun ends with a sibilant [s], [ʃ], [ʧ], [z], [ʒ], or [ʤ], the plural is formed by adding [ɪz]. Morphologically, this postulate is sufficient to describe the plural rules in English. However, there are a few complications in the spelling.
- Rule -oes: most nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant also form their plurals by adding -es, pronounced [z]: potato – potatoes.
- Rule -s: Nouns ending in y preceded by a consonant replace y and add -ies (pronounced [iz]): story – stories.
Note that countable nouns (especially for people or places) ending in y and preceded by a consonant form their plurals by adding -ies: spy – spies.
Words ending in y, preceded by a vowel, pluralize them by adding -s: toy - toys.
But still, in English, most nouns are pluralized by adding the ending s/es. These plural endings in a foreign language are the most popular. For example: ball - balls, train - trains.
Plural of uncountable nouns
Besides the traditional plural formation, there are other plural rules in English. There are many other less used shaping methods. The plurality of nouns in English is usually associated with older forms of the language or with external borrowings.
Some nouns look the same in both singular and plural. Some of them are animal names:
Deer - deer, fish - fish (and many individual names of fish: cod, mackerel, trout, etc.), moose - elk, sheep - sheep.
Other nouns with equal singular and plural endings include: aircraft - plane, blues - blues, cannon (sometimes cannons) - cannon, head - head.
Below is the formation of plurals in English, in the table.
| Nouns ending in -y | Nouns ending in -ch, -s, -sh, -x, -z | Nouns with -f, -fe at the end | Nouns ending in -o | |||||
| baby - baby, baby | babies - babies, babies | bench | benches | leaf - leaf | leaves |
studio - studio zoo - zoo |
studios zoo - zoos |
|
| butterfly | butterflies | box - box | boxes - boxes | wife - wife | wifes - spouses | |||
| daisy - chamomile | daisies - daisies | bush | bushes | wolf - wolf | wolves - wolves | |||
| brush - brush | brushes | chief - chief | chiefs | |||||
The plural table in English reflects the peculiarities of changing the endings of nouns in different cases.
Germanic plural nouns
Some English words came to us from other languages and form their plural form according to the rules of the language from which they came. Most Germanic nouns used in English can be formed from the singular by adding -n or -en, resulting from the obsolete weak declension. For example: vax - vaxen, unix - unices.
Sometimes the transformation is done by simply changing the vowel in a word, called an umlaut (sometimes called a mutated plural): mouse - mice. If the words are borrowed from German, then in English the plural of nouns will be formed according to the rules of German.
Nouns from Greek and Latin
Because English includes words from many ancestral languages, many borrowings come from Latin and Classical Greek. Such nouns (especially Latin ones) often retain their original plurals, at least not long after their introduction. In some cases, both forms still compete for attention: for example, for librarians, appendix is appendices, and for physicians, appendix is appendixes.
Well-formed Latin plurals are the most acceptable and are generally required in academic and scientific contexts. GenerallyIn this case, plurals ending in -s are preferred.
Ending a becomes -ae (also -æ) or just adds –s.
Ending ex or ix becomes -ices, or just adds –es.
Plural of nouns in English from other languages
Some nouns of French origin add -x.
Nouns of Slavic origin add -a or -i according to their own rules, or just –s.
Hieroglyph nouns get -im or -ot according to their own rules, or just -s. Note that ot is pronounced like os in the Ashkenazi dialect.
Many nouns of Japanese origin do not have a plural form and do not change. However, other nouns, such as kimonos, futons, and tsunamis, are more common with English plural endings.
Plurals and exceptions in English
In addition to all the above features of the formation of the plural form in the language, there are additional exceptions.
A number of nouns associated with the replacement of a vowel in the root of a word when forming a plural, you just need to remember: foot - f eet - legs, tooth - t eeth - teeth, man - m e n - men, woman - women - women, child - children - children, ox - oxen - bulls.
