章振邦英语语法教程--Lecture 7 Number and Genitive

Lecture 7 Number and Genitive

7.1 Number

In the broadest sense of the word, NUMBER refers to a grammatical classification used in the analysis of word classes which have contrasts between singular and plural. Number contrasts in English are seen in nouns (boy, boys), pronouns (she, they, this, these), determiners (this, these, each, all), and verbs (say, says, was, were). But in the present lecture, the sense of NUMBER is restricted only to the number forms in nouns.

1) Regular and irregular plural

Individual nouns are all countable and therefore have singular and plural forms. The singular form of an individual noun, which shares the same form as the base of the word, can take such determiners as a(n) and one (e.g.: a/one desk, an/one article). The plural form of an individual noun can be regular or irregular. The regular plural is formed by adding –s or –es to the base (e.g.: days, houses, donkeys, tomatoes, boxes, churches, brushes, classes, babies, countries, loaves, wives, etc/), while the irregular plural is not formed in the same way but by other means such as by changing the internal vowels or by changing the ending of the noun (e.g.: tooth—teeth, man—men, mouse—mice, child—children, ox—oxen).

Irregular plurals also include some words of foreign origin,

borrowed from Greek, Latin or French. The plural forms of these borrowed words are known as “foreign plurals”, e.g.:

basis—bases criterion—criteria

stratum—strata alumnus—alumni

Some borrowed words have two plurals—a foreign plural and an English plural, e.g.:

medium—media—mediums

index—indices—indexes

formula—formulae—formulas

curriculum—curricula—curriculums

For some nouns, their singular and plural numbers share the same form, e.g.:

a deer—ten deer

one fish—several fish

a Japanese—a group of Japanese

an aircraft—a hundred aircraft

2) Number forms of the collective, material, abstract and proper noun

a) Number forms of the collective noun

Some collective nouns are countable, some are not. Countable collective nouns behave just like individual nouns. An uncountable collective noun has no plural form. If we want to count the number, we still have to use a kind of individual noun related semantically to the

collective (e.g.: a piece of furniture, two articles of equipment). There is also a kind of collective noun which can be used either in the singular or in the plural sense. When viewed as a single unit, the collective is singular in meaning and is to be followed by a singular verb. When, on the other hand, the noun is used to refer to the individuals that form the collective, it is plural in meaning and should be followed by a plural verb.

b) Number forms of the material noun

Material nouns are generally uncountable and have no plural forms. But there are some such items that can be used either uncountably or countably. When used to mean the material itself, they are uncountable, but when used in other senses, for example, two coffees in the sense of “two cupfuls of coffee”, they are countable, behaving just like individual nouns. There are also material nouns that can take plural endings, for example, sands/waters in the sense of “large expanse of sand or water” and foods/fruits in the sense of “a variety of food or fruit”; these nouns, though ending in-s, remain uncountable.

c) Number forms of the abstract noun

Abstract nouns are mostly uncountable. They cannot take such determiners as a(n)/one or plural forms. But there are a few abstract nouns (e.g.: “a victory”, “two victories”) that are countable like individual nouns. There are also abstract nouns that have plural endings but which are uncountable. We can say, for instance, “He is in financial