 |
Pronunciation of count nouns Forming plural of count nouns 1 The plural is written 'es' after 'sh', 'ss', 'x', 's' or 'ch', and is pronounced /ez/. bush - bushes glass - glasses box - boxes bus - buses church - churches 2 When the 's' follows one of the sounds (not letters!) /f/, /k/, /p/, /t/ or /th/, it is pronounced /s/. belief - beliefs week - weeks cap - caps pet - pets moth - moths 3 When the 's' follows one of the sounds /s/, /z/ or /dj/, it is pronounced /ez/. service - services prize - prizes age - ages 4 Some verbs which end with the sound /th/, for example 'mouth', have their plural forms pronounced as ending in /dh/ mouth /mauth/ - mouths /maudhz/ With others, such as 'bath' and 'path', the pronunciation can be either /ths/ or / dhz/. You may need to check the pronunciations of words like these in a dictionary. 5 In most other cases the 's' is pronounced /z/. bottle - bottles degree - degrees doctor - doctors idea - ideas leg - legs system - systems tab - tabs 6 With nouns which end in a consonant letter followed by 'y', you substitute 'ies' for 'y' to form the plural. country - countries lady - ladies opportunity - opportunities 7 With nouns which end in a vowel letter followed by 'y', you just add 's' to form the plural. boy - boys day - days valley - valleys 8 There are a few nouns ending in 'f' or 'fe' where you form the plural by substituting 'ves' for 'f' or 'fe'. calf - calves elf, half, knife, leaf, life, loaf, scarf, sheaf, shelf, thief, turf, wife, wolf 9 With many nouns which end in 'o', you just add 's' to form the plural. photo - photos radio - radios However, the following nouns ending in 'o' have plurals ending in 'oes': buffalo, cargo, famingo, fresco, ghetto, innuendo, mango, manifesto, memento, mosquito, motto, salvo, stiletto, tornado, torpedo, volcano 10 Special plural forms: child - children foot - feet goose - geeese louse - lice man - men mouse - mice ox - oxen tooth - teeth woman - women 11 Some nouns ending in 'us' have plurals ending in 'i': focus - foci nucleus - nuclei radius - radii stimulus - stimuli 12 Some nouns ending in 'um' have plurals ending in 'a': aquarium - aquaria memorandum - memoranda referendum - referenda spectrum - spectra stratum - strata 13 Most nouns ending in 'is' have plurals in which the 'is' is replaced by 'es'. analysis /ses/ - analyses /si:z/ diagnosis - diagnoses axis - axes hypothesis - hypotheses basis - bases neurousis - neuroses crisis - crises parenthesis - parentheses 14 With some nouns ending in 'a', the plurals are formed by adding 'e'. larva - larvae vertebra - vertebrae Some, such as 'antenna', 'formula', amoeba' and 'nebula', also have less formal plurals ending in 's'. 15 Look at these words. The plural with the 's' form is less formal: appendix - appendices or appendixes matrix - matrices automaton - automata or automatons phenomenon - phenomena corpus - corpora tempo - tempi or tempos criterion - criteria virtuoso - virtuosi or virtuosos genus - genera vortex - vortices index - indices or indexes (from Collins Cobuild english grammar page 437) home |
|