Two Numbers in Grammar: Singular and Plural
Number is a grammatical category. Numbers express count distinctions.
In grammar, number is also called grammatical number.
Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs have the number categories: singular and plural.
- We call a noun singular number when it expresses a single person or thing.
- We call a noun plural number when it expresses more than one thing or person.
Examples of Singular Numbers
In daily life, we use nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs.
Sometimes we refer to them as a single unit.
Here are some nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs as examples of the singular form.
- Noun – boy, cat, girl, woman, notebook
- Pronoun – I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it
- Adjective – my, your, his, her, its
- Verb – am, is, was, has
Examples of Plural Numbers
Occasionally we refer to more than one noun, pronoun, adjective or verb to express.
Here are some examples of the plural form.
- Noun – boys, cats, girls, women, notebooks
- Pronoun – we, us, you, they, them
- Adjective – our, your, their
- Verb – are, were, have
Singular and Plural Forms
Sometimes singular and plural forms are identical, but sometimes they are different from each other.
Let’s see how they are different from each other.
- Sometimes both the forms are identical.
Sometimes we can make plural forms by
- adding ‘s’ to the singular form – the most common way
- adding ‘s’ to the words which end in ‘oo’
- by adding ‘es’ to the words which end in ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘o’ or ‘x’
- adding ‘s’ to the words which end in ‘y’ having the vowel before it
- adding ‘es’ to the words which end in ‘y’ having the consonant before it, changing ‘y’ into ‘i’
- the vowel sound between two consonants is changed
- the vowel sound between two consonants is changed with its last consonant
- the ending letter ‘f’ or ‘fe’ is changed to ‘v’ with ‘es’.
- exceptions for ‘f’ or ‘fe’
- adding ‘en’ or ‘ren’
- with no singular
- with no plural
- changing the first part, second part or both parts in compound words
We will present these in tabular form, showing the singular form, plural form, and the procedure for forming the plural of a singular noun.