Two Numbers in Grammar- Singular and Plural
The number is a grammatical category. Numbers express count distinctions.
In Grammar, the number is also called grammatical number.
Noun, pronoun, adjective and verb have the number categories- Singular and Plural Number.
- 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 Number-
In our daily life, we refer nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs.
Sometimes we refer to those as a single.
Here are some nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs as the 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 Number-
Sometimes we refer 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 those 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’
- addition of ‘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
- 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 shall take those in tabular form, showing the singular form, plural form and procedure to form a plural number of a singular one.
