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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 ...
I disagree. "Criteria" is a plural noun, which does not agree with the singular verb "is". If there is 1 criterion, it would be "What is the criterion for that writhing project?" If there are more than 1, it would be "What are the criteria for that writhing project?". (and did you really mean writhing, or writing?)
If the singular is not usually treated as a countable noun, that makes it far more likely that a split is the best decision. For example, time is a straightforward and obvious primary topic, but usually we don't treat "time" as something with a plural.
Modern English marks a division between singular and plural number. (Old English pronouns also marked the dual number.) Singular number restricts the denotation of the noun to the set of singularities. [23] Plural number is often said to mean more than one, [24] but, in fact, it restricts the denotation of the noun to the set of non-singularities.
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.
For example, the noun ume "child" has the singular ablative form umearengandik or umeagandik "from the child", the plural ablative form umeengandik "from the children", and the indefinite ablative form umerengandik or umegandik (cf. the genitive forms umearen, umeen, and umeren and the absolutive forms umea, umeak, and ume).
Singular and plural forms are marked from the general form. The general is used when the specific number is deemed irrelevant or unimportant. In this system, the singular is often called the singulative, to distinguish it as derived from a different form. Similarly, the plural derived from the general has been called the plurative. [195]
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.