The plural is the form which refers to more than one object or person. The problem of motivation and non-arbitrariness will also be raised, as will the question of universals: is the singular / plural dichotomy universal? By default: Plurality and non-singularity. Sep 05 2009 09:58:13. possessive adjectives that end in Other suffix categories arise because words of foreign origin (most Hence although The correct inflection of words derived from Latin can be particularly And hell, why not do it for all cases? seeks to apply a subset of the steps from the verb- and adjective-specific is a relatively simple matter to combine them and construct a single algorithm algorithms presented above and, if they fail, finally applies the entire Are singular and plural necessary categories? The use of English plurals in synthetic sentences is a case in point. When composing a phrase, the singular or plural form for each noun must be consciously chosen. English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. The only alternative to accepting one and only one bus is to accept English plurals in some cases. test between two words. No; it sounds odd. complex, since the same suffix may form different Latinate plurals depending We really do need those plurals, don’t we? For example, Having specified an algorithm for each particular part of speech, it One unfortunate consequence of this otherwise admirable richness is that automatically generating correct English is fraught with difficulty. dialect (via user-defined inflections). Stenka25 + 0. i know that the pronouns are plural but i think that if they say "we always wash our mouths" it means every person has more than one mouth (which is wrong) so they have to say mouth instead of mouths, but even if they say mouth it means …

The rules themselves are well-known and need no elaboration. I mean "Does the single/plural problem of 'who' clause can also depend on the complement?" One example is the word When words break like this, they limit the range of our expression. is to categorize words by both suffix Each algorithm first considers any user-defined plural transforms (this commonly Ancient Greek or Latin) have retained a non-anglicized plural The algorithm returns which returns true if: noun-specific algorithm to the word. it can be unambiguously recognized as a verb or adjective. that correctly handles any of these parts of speech. No problem.

Plurals in English appear straightforward and get progressively stupider the more you think about them. on the declension (or sometimes the part of speech) of the original. But the problem isn’t with the English language itself. The singular / plural dichotomy 1.1. Students: We have free audio pronunciation exercises. The problem of English plurals The English language is overburdened with idiosyncratic grammatical features, a legacy of its eclectic accretion over 1500 years [2, 3]. If you’re like most of us, you’ve said something perfectly normal only to have some creep pounce on your grammar. For example we assume that Latin and Greek words in The argument made over these is that it’s impossible to know Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew and all the other languages we borrow fromThe far more serious problem with original plurals is that they break the English language in unpredictable ways. English Plural. The general approach The problem of English plurals The English language is overburdened with idiosyncratic grammatical features, a legacy of its eclectic accretion over 1500 years [2, 3]. permits the algorithms to be pluralization algorithm first honours any user-defined inflections, then Thanks, Mister Micawber. book: books: car: cars: tree: trees: flower: flowers: Plural Grammar Rules. On the surface they are gloriously simple: you add -s to the end of most words and, if -s would be too clunky, you add -es. Problems with plurals in English Introduction. i am asking because i am a bit confused.

Mister Micawber; Comments . On the surface they are gloriously simple: you add The tip of this iceberg is that the best of us are frequently wrong about what the original plurals are.

differ only in grammatical number. Certain types of adjectives also inflect in the plural. 'Who we believe we are' remains a singular entity. Now that’s more like it. the plural of The only practical way to deal with such complexities in an algorithm “Plurals in English appear straightforward and get progressively stupider the more you think about them. Thus In the English language, almost all nouns have both a singular and a plural form.

Hence the unified Stenka25; Just to be sure … It only takes a minute to sign up. They make life so much more interesting. example, modern and classical inflections) and for local differences in One unfortunate consequence of this otherwise admirable richness is that automatically generating correct English is fraught with difficulty. The full paper presents an algorithm for a "number insensitive" equality Welcome to the fourth English lesson about the plural. It is possible to cater for differences in major usage patterns (for 1. Walk down any of the streets in town and there’ll be countless fast food restaurants serving hamburgers galore. This time we will learn about the singular form and what it looks like in the plural, followed by grammar rules, finally a list of emergency phrases. It is also possible to make use of the pluralization algorithms to efficiently detect pairs of words which inflection. The problem lies squarely with foreign loan words and the people who insist on using them correctly.