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Unlike some common nouns, proper nouns do not typically show number contrast in English. Most proper nouns in English are singular and lack a plural form, though some may instead be plural and lack a singular form. For example, we typically expect Michigan but not *Michigans and the Philippines [b] but not *Philippine. Proper nouns also differ ...
In Latin, specie is the ablative singular form, while species is the nominative form, which happens to be the same in both singular and plural. In English, species behaves similarly—as a noun with identical singular and plural—while specie is treated as a mass noun, referring to money in the form of coins (the idea is of "[payment] in kind ...
In American English (AmE), collective nouns are almost always singular in construction: the committee was unable to agree. However, when a speaker wishes to emphasize that the individuals are acting separately, a plural pronoun may be employed with a singular or plural verb: the team takes their seats, rather than the team takes its seats.
Countable nouns generally have singular and plural forms. [4] In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding -[e]s (as in dogs, bushes), although there are also irregular forms (woman/women, foot/feet), including cases where the two forms are identical (sheep, series). For more details see English plural.
Certain collective nouns do not have a singular form and exist only in the plural, such as "clothes". There are also nouns found exclusively or almost exclusively in the plural, such as the English scissors. These are referred to with the term plurale tantum.
Latin has different singular and plural forms for nouns, verbs, and adjectives, in contrast to English where adjectives do not change for number. [10] Tundra Nenets can mark singular and plural on nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and postpositions. [11] However, the most common part of speech to show a number distinction is pronouns.
Georgian verbs may be suppletive for tense and animacy as well as number. When a noun occurs with a numeral in Georgian, it takes the singular form regardless of its semantic number. Verbal agreement is syntactic, and therefore is also singular. However, the pluractionality of the verbal root remains plural. [2] Thus,
For inanimate nouns, the locative case endings are attached directly if the noun is singular, and plural and indefinite number are marked by the suffixes -eta-and -(e)ta-, respectively, before the case ending (this is in contrast to the non-locative cases, which follow a different system of number marking where the indefinite form of the ending ...