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    What Are Plural Nouns?

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    Alpha dook
    Plural nouns are formed by adding -s or -es to most singular nouns, like dog to dogs. Compound nouns can be made of multiple words joined together, like bus stop or swimming pool. To make compound nouns plural, the -s or -es is typically added to the "head" noun, or most important word, such as sisters-in-law or swimming pools. There are some exceptions, like words ending in -ful where the plural can be formed by adding -s to either the head noun or -ful.

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    What Are Plural Nouns?

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    Alpha dook
    21 views3 pages
    Plural nouns are formed by adding -s or -es to most singular nouns, like dog to dogs. Compound nouns can be made of multiple words joined together, like bus stop or swimming pool. To make compound nouns plural, the -s or -es is typically added to the "head" noun, or most important word, such as sisters-in-law or swimming pools. There are some exceptions, like words ending in -ful where the plural can be formed by adding -s to either the head noun or -ful.

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    Plural nouns are formed by adding -s or -es to most singular nouns, like dog to dogs. Compound nouns can be made of multiple words joined together, like bus stop or swimming pool. To make compound nouns plural, the -s or -es is typically added to the "head" noun, or most important word, such as sisters-in-law or swimming pools. There are some exceptions, like words ending in -ful where the plural can be formed by adding -s to either the head noun or -ful.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    21 views3 pages

    What Are Plural Nouns?

    Uploaded by

    Alpha dook
    Plural nouns are formed by adding -s or -es to most singular nouns, like dog to dogs. Compound nouns can be made of multiple words joined together, like bus stop or swimming pool. To make compound nouns plural, the -s or -es is typically added to the "head" noun, or most important word, such as sisters-in-law or swimming pools. There are some exceptions, like words ending in -ful where the plural can be formed by adding -s to either the head noun or -ful.

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    What are Plural Nouns?

    Another category of nouns is plural nouns. In the English language, most plural
    nouns are formed by adding -s or -es to the singular form. However, there are
    many exceptions, as we will see below.

    Using -s or -es to Form the Plural Noun:

    Here are some examples where the suffix -s or -es can be used to form the plural
    of a noun.

    Example:

    • dog ➡ dogs
    • car ➡ cars
    • plate ➡ plates
    • house ➡ houses
    • box ➡ boxes
    • glass ➡ glasses

    Notably, we must use the plural verb in these cases, as well.

    • Those two dogs are both cute.


    • Those houses are very expensive to buy.

    Forming the Plural of Compound Nouns:

    www.needgrammar.com
    A compound noun is made up of more than one word. Before understanding how
    to form the plural, it is important to first see the variety of ways that compound
    nouns can be created in the English language.

    Structure Example
    noun + noun bus stop
    noun + adjective mouthful
    adjective + noun blueberry
    verb (ing) + noun swimming pool
    noun + verb (ing) haircut
    verb + preposition check-out
    noun + preposition passer-by
    preposition + noun underwater
    noun + preposition + noun mother-in-law

    You may notice that compound nouns can be spelled with one word only
    (mouthful), while others use two words (swimming pool) or employ hyphens (e.g.
    passer-by).


    Forming the plural of compound nouns is generally done by adding an 's' (or -es)
    to the principal word. Thus, you must first locate the most significant word in the
    compound noun (this principal word is also called the head noun).

    This head noun, or most significant word, gives us the information about what
    the compound refers to.

    Here are some examples of how plural compound nouns can be created once you
    identify the head:

    Compound noun head plural

    sister-in-law sister sisters-in-law

    blackberry berry blackberries

    bus driver driver bus drivers

    haircut cut haircuts

    www.needgrammar.com
    Compound noun head plural

    swimming pool pool swimming pools

    There is a different situation when the compound nouns end with '-ful' (e.g.
    mouthful, truckful, or handful). In this case, the noun may have two possible
    plurals and the -s can be added to either the head noun or to -ful, as long as one is
    consistent in use.

    Examples:

    Add plural form to the head noun:



    mouthful, truckful, spoonsful, handful, cupsful

    Add plural form to '-ful’:



    mouthfuls, truckful, spoonfuls, handfuls, cupfuls
    In the case of a compound made up of a noun and a preposition, (such as passer-
    by), the nouns are the part that received the ‘s’ in order to make it plural.

    Examples:

    • passer-by — passers-by

    Finally, there are some cases where none of the elements is a noun, as in “grown-
    ups” or “check-outs.” In these cases, the plural is formed by adding 's' to the last
    word. For example, the compound noun “check-outs” is made up of the noun
    “check” and the preposition 'out'. The plural of “check-outs” is formed by adding
    's' to 'out'.


    Examples:

    • grown-up — grown-ups
    • check-in — check-outs

    www.needgrammar.com

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