Handout 53

Plural and Possessive Nouns

  There are four common ways of expressing the plural noun in English. 

#1

            Most nouns describe things that can be counted one at a time.  For example, you can have one boy, or two boys.  One boy is singular because there is only one, and two boys are plural, because there is more than one.  They are easy to count, so they are easy to count.  Most of these nouns are made plural by simply adding “s” or “es”  If the singular form of the noun ends in “s”, you add “es” to make it plural.  If the singular form of the noun ends in “y”, you change the “y” to “ies” and the noun becomes plural.  If the singular form of the noun ends in any other letter of the alphabet, you simply add “s” to make it plural.  Most of the nouns in English fall into this category.  Look at some of the examples below.

Ending in “s” or “x”     Ending in “y”                           Ending in other letters

1 glass, 2 glasses          1 baby, 2 babies                       1 boat, 2 boats

1 dress, 2 dresses         1 dictionary, 2 dictionaries       1 dog, 2 dogs

1 box, 2 boxes                1 lady, 2 ladies                           1 idea, 2 ideas

#2

            Some nouns describe things than can not be counted,  For example, can you count water?  How about gasoline, dirt or ice?  These nouns are very difficult to make plural because there is no standard unit of “one” or “two”.  These are called mass nouns, and to describe quantity for mass nouns, we must  use other words together with the noun.  Therefore, we might say “3 bags of dirt, 2 liters if water, 5 gallons of gasoline, or three bags of ice.  In the case of count nouns, we must use other nouns, adjectives and prepositions to describe quantity.

#3

            Some common words in English are the same for plural as they are for singular.  There is no apparent reason for this other than that is the way the language has evolved.  These are words that you will have to notice and learn, as there is no rule that can help you to identify these nouns.  Some examples are:  (1 fish, 2 fish)  (1 sheep, 2 sheep)  (1 deer, 2 deer)

#4

            There are some common words in English look like regular count nouns, but whose spelling changes when they are made plural.  Again, there is no other way to learn these but to memorize them.  Some examples are: (1 goose, 2 geese)  (1 foot, 2 feet)  (1 man, 2 men)  1 woman, 2 women)  (1 ox, 2 oxen)  (l child, 2 children)

            Fortunately, almost all count nouns in English are regular, so except for a few common words, method 1 will be the normal way to pluralize nouns in English.

Plurality Exceptions

            There are always exceptions, so these are general rules that will apply most of the time.  The following are some examples of exceptions you might encounter.

Some words are used chiefly or exclusively in the plural sense.  If you make the word singular, the meaning changes. 

Collective nouns

            A collective noun takes a singular form when it refers to a collection as a whole and a plural form when it refers to the members of a collection as separate persons or things. 

A collective noun should not be treated as both singular and plural in the same construction.

POSSESSIVE AND POSSESSIVE PLURAL NOUNS

1. Use ‘s to form the possessive of nouns not ending in s

2. Use ‘s for the possessive of singular nouns ending in s

3. Use the ‘ without the s for the possessive of plural nouns already ending in s

4. Use the ‘s for the possessive of indefinite pronouns

5. Use ‘s only with the last noun when two or more nouns express joint possession

6. Use ‘s to form the plural of numbers, letters and words

Plural Possessive exceptions

            When a word that have a sibilant (an s sound) before the last syllable, add an apostrophe at the end of the word to express the possessive even if it is singular.

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