Dejan Karavesovi, Assistant Professor

EL IS 1

2016

Nouns (number)
Classes of nouns:
PROPER nouns
typically uncountable nouns (Mary /London/Wednesday), but (the Alps, the Simpsons, on
Wednesdays) ;
COMMON nouns
typically count nouns (desk, CD, book, apple), but (sunshine, jeans, work);
MASS nouns (milk, bread, money) typically uncountable nouns;
COLLECTIVE nouns (cattle, committee, government, police) singular form, but typically
plural meaning (six cattle are grazing in the field);
ABSTRACT nouns
some are countable nouns (ideas, wishes, ), some are uncountable;

Countable and uncountable nouns:

English nouns can be divided into two main categories:
COUNTABLE nouns (ones that have a grammatical form of singular and grammatical form
of plural) book(s); father(s); man/men; etc.
UNCOUNTABLE nouns which can be realized:
only as singular, with a singular verb (advice, baggage, homework, information,
nonsense, north, news);
only as plural (earnings, gallows, fireworks, headquarters, measles, pliers, pyjamas,
rabies, scissors )
as one form which can be interpreted as singular or plural (barracks, deer, dozen, means,
offspring, series, sheep, species, aircraft, salmon, mathematics, linguistics).

Formal marking of plurality

All countable nouns that represent something that is more than one are marked for plural.
There are several ways of marking plural in English. The most common one is by means of
plural ending s.

Pronunciation:
Plural ending s is read:
/s/ if the base ends in voiceless sound other than /s/, //, //;
/z/ if the base ends in a voiced sound other than /z/, //, //;
/z/ if the base ends in these sounds: /s/, /z/, //, //, //, //.

Spelling
Plural ending s is spelled differently after certain letters:
If the noun ends with a consonant plus -y, make the plural by changing -y to -ies:
berry berries; daisy daisies; story stories;
If the noun ends with -ch, -s, -sh, -x, or -z, add -es to form the plural (but, stomachs):
church churches; bus buses; wish wishes; box boxes; buzz buzzes.

Dejan Karavesovi, Assistant Professor

EL IS 1

2016

If the noun ends with f or fe, change f/-fe into ve: knife knives; half halves; scarf
scarves;
Nouns which end in two vowels plus -f usually form plurals in the normal way, with just an s
(chiefs, spoofs, but chef chefs, hoofhoofs/hooves)
Nouns ending in -o can add either -s or -es in the plural, and some can be spelled either
way. Those which have a vowel before the final -o always just add -s:
with oes: buffaloes, dominoes, echoes, heroes, mosquitoes, potatoes, tomatoes, torpedoes;
with s: zeros, avocados, studios, zoos.
There are also some foreign endings, such as:
-is -es: analysis analyses; hypothesis hypotheses; thesis theses; crisis crises.
-us -i: stimulus stimuli; corpus corpora; thesaurus thesauri/thesauruses;
-a -ae: alga algae; larva larvae: formula formulae/formulas;
-um/-on -a: bacterium bacteria; stadium stadia/stadiums; criterion criteria;
phenomenon phenomena;
Another way to form plural nouns is by means of a separate form of a word or a change in
the base:
foot feet ;
goose geese;
louse lice; man men/people;
mouse mice tooth teeth;
woman women;
Some nouns make plural forms by adding the suffix en:
brother brethren,
child children,
ox oxen

Partitive expressions
Although some nouns cannot be counted, by using quantifying expressions we can make
them countable:
a bar of chocolate;
an article of furniture;
a pair of trousers;
an item of news;
a piece of advice;
an article of faith;
a loaf of bread.

Change in meaning
good goods
ground grounds
iron irons