What is Plural?
[[In]] [[linguistics]], [[noun phrase]]s have [[grammatical number]]. '''Plural''' is one kind of grammatical number. In English, '''plural''' noun phrases are counted as more or less than one (e.g., ''{{ndash}}32 degrees, no bananas'', ''0.5 liters'', ''1.2 grams'', ''two times'', ''three fish'', ''20 mothers''). In contrast, a [[singular]] noun phrase usually refers to something that you would count as one only (e.g., ''one time'', ''a glass'', ''the sun'', ''my mother'', ''Jennifer''). Noun phrases that cannot be counted are also singular in English (e.g., ''water'', ''the meat'', ''some space'', etc.). In many languages, a [[suffix]] (word ending) is added to a word to show that the word is plural. In [[English language|English]], the normal plural [[suffix]] ''i''s ''-s'' (e.g., ''cat'' is singular, and ''cat'''s''''' is plural). == Plurals in English == There are a number of exceptions:<ref>Crystal, David 1995. ''The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language''. Cambridge University Press, p200/1. {{ISBN|0-521-401-79-8}}</ref><ref>Fowler H.W.1965. ''A dictionary of modern English usage''. 2nd ed, revised by Sir Ernest Gowers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p456.</ref> *Singulars ending in <u>s</u> are usually the same in plural: ''species'', ''mumps'', ''innings'' and so on. However, proper nouns ending in 's' take add 'es' in plural: ''Jones'' becomes ''the Joneses''. *Compound words add the plural to the noun part: <u>sons</u>-in-law, Lord <u>Mayors</u>, <u>Courts</u> Martial. *Singulars ending in <u>y</u> become <u>ies</u> in the plural if a [[consonant]] is before the suffix: <u>day</u> becomes <u>days</u>, but <u>spy</u> becomes <u>spies</u>. Personal names are again exceptions: the plural of <u>Mary</u> is <u>Marys</u>. *Singulars ending in <u>f</u> usually changes to <u>ves</u>: dwarf to dwarves, leaf to leaves, and so on. *Special cases: some plurals just have to be learnt. The plural of ''person'' is normally ''people'', but sometimes ''persons'' is used. *Invariant nouns: <br/>The [[common name]]