2 A noun countable is not used in the plural. Mass nouns from one type of uncountable noun. They are words for concrete objects stated in an
undivided quantity coffee, iron. Abstract nouns including names of school subjects and sports are uncountable.
5
d. Collective Nouns A collective noun is a word for group of people, animals or objects
considered as a single unit. Examples of collective nouns are audience, committee, class, crew, crowd, enemy, faculty, flock, folk, government,
group, herd, jury, majority, nation, orchestra, press, public, and team. e. Concrete Nouns
Concrete nouns are words that have a physical shape that can be seen or touched. They can come from other categories of nouns: child, animal,
magazine, horse, plank, and vase. f. Abstract Nouns
Abstract Nouns differ from concrete nouns in that they do not have a physicalshape. They describe ideas, qualities, or feelings: anger, bravery,
hate, ignorance, intelligence, knowledge, love, peace, and sympathy.
6
3. Form of Nouns
Noun in many European languages may be inflected, that is, changed in form, for certain grammatical properties. Usually these changes are made through
special endings. Inflectional forms of nouns may indicate: a. Gender:
1 Masculine – refer to persons or animals of male sex: man, father, uncle,
lad, king, groom, and actor. 2
Feminine – refers to person or animal of female sex: woman, mother, auntie, lass, queen, bride, actress, and geese.
3 Neuter – refers to objects to object no sex: tree, table, slipper, and car.
5
Ibid., p. 7.
6
Ed Swick, English Verbs Essentials of Grammar for ESL Learners, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010, p. 77.
4 Case – special endings mark nouns according to their function in the
sentence – subject, object of the verb, etc.
7
b. Number:
Number is the name of system contrasting Singular and Plural. In the first
instance, it applies to noun inflection: noun typically has contrasting Singular and Plural forms. Thus cat and cats ate the singular and plural forms of the noun cat,
and so on.
8
4. Definition of Regular Singular and Plural Nouns
The most common ways to make nouns Plural is add „s” or “es”. The vast
majority of words in the English language become plural simply by adding an “s”. The plural of words ending in “s, - sh, - ch, - z, and – x, however is formed by
adding “es” Student – students, teacher – teachers, box – boxes, and class –
classes.
9
Outside these numerals we have grammatical expressions of number in mostsubstantives, in some pronouns and in some verbal forms, but neither in
adjectives nor inparticles. While some languages distinguish a singular for one, a dual for two, sometimes even a trial for threeand a plural, English like most
of the cognatelanguages has now only a singular and a plural.
10
The plural of nouns is formed by adding final “s” and final “es” is added to
noun that end, sh, - ch, - s, - z, - and – x song – songs, box – boxes, bush –
bushes.
11
The regular way of forming the plural is by adding the s-ending with its threefoldpronunciation.
12
7
Frank, op. cit., p. 12.
8
Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, A Student’s Introduction English Grammar, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 85.
9
Barbara Hansen and Rebecca McDaniel, Simplified Sentence Skills, Linclonwood Chicago: University of Cincinnati, 1998, p. 180.
10
Otto Jespersen, Essentials of English Grammar, London: Taylor Francis Group, 2006, p. 154.
11
Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and Usung English Grammar, New York: Longman, 1999, p. 100.
12
Jespersen, op. cit., p. 155.
