Four score years

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 692.

Fifteen head of cattle

Two dozen handkerchiefs

Two brace of partridge

Group the words according to a particular type of morphemic distribution.

a) mice, leapt, appendices, kittens, cats, witches, leaping, children, leaped, leaps, formulae, stimuli, matrices, sanatoria;

b) geese, dogs, chickens, deer, mats, bade, bid, phenomena, formulae, for­mulas, genii, geniuses, scissors;

c) genera, brethren, brothers, trout, gestures, blessed, blest, tins, pots, matches, antennae, antennas;

d) anthems, classes, lice, handkerchiefs, handkerchieves, bereft, bereaved, grouse, cleaved, cleft, clove.

Two yoke of oxendrew the cart.

The nouns pound, stone and foot often take a zero plural inflection, when followed by a smaller unit:

The bill came to four pound ten.

She used to weight nine stone (orstones) but she has gone down to eight stone three.

His brother is six foot three.

His brother is six foot (or feet) tall.

NOUNS IN -(E)S: AMLS, BARRACKS, CROSS-ROADS, GALLOWS, HEADQUARTERS, MEANS, SERIES, SPECIES (examples p. 48!)

plural of compound nouns (p. 48-49)

There are three ways of pluralizing compound nouns:

1. Usually only the last element is pluralized whether it is a noun or some other part of speech.

lady-bird® lady-birds

boy-friend® boy-friends

school-mate® school-mates

forget-me-not® forget-me-nots

good-for-nothing® good-for-nothings

merry-go-round® merry-go-rounds

1. Both nouns are pluralized:

a) when the first element is man or woman,on condition that this element denotes the sex of the compound (man friend® men friends, woman doctor ® women doctors …)

b) when the first element is a classifying genitive (a man's clubor a men's club ® men's clubs, a printer's error or printers' error ® printers' error …)

1. In compound nouns where the noun is postmodified by a prepositional phrase, an adjective, an adverb or an infinitive, the first element (the noun) is usually pluralized:

editor-in-chief ® editors-in-chief

point of view ® points of view

man-of-war ® men-of-war

mother-to-be ® mothers-to-be

runner-up ® runners-up

passer-by ® passers-by

In a number of compounds where a noun is postmodified by an adjective, the compound is felt as a single unit, thus the plural -s is often added at the end:

lord mayors,brigadier generals, court-martials,knight-errants,poet laureates

Similarly in some compound where the noun is postmodified by a prepositional phrase (particularly in AmE and becoming more and more common in BrE):

commander-in-chiefs for commanders-in-chief

mother-in-laws for mothers-in-law

sister-in-laws for sisters-in-law

plural of titles (p. 49-50)

If a title + a proper noun is pluralized, the usual practice is to pluralize the proper noun.

Colloquial: the (two) Miss Browns

the (three) Doctor Greys

Official: the (two) Misses Brown

the (three) Doctors Grey

NOTE:

1. Mrs. is never pluralized nor written in full!
2. The plural form of Mr. is Messrs (short for Messieurs) but it can be used in business language only; otherwise Mr. remains unchanged.

plural of foreign nouns (p. 50-51)

LATIN NOUNS IN -US, -UM, -A

bacillus® bacilli, stimulus ® stimuli, radius ® radii, bacterium® bacteria …

GREEK NOUNS IN -IS, -ON

analysis® analyses, axis® axes, basis ® bases,

crisis ® crises, hypothesis ® hypotheses,

oasis ® oases, thesis ® theses, criterion ® criteria,

phenomenon ® phenomena

FRENCH NOUNS

beau® beaux, bureau® bureaux, monsieur® messieurs, madam ® mesdames

The longer a foreign word has been in the language and the more it has been used, the more it tends to acquire the English plural inflection -s, particularly in non-technical, everyday language (natural process of assimilation). p. 50!

A great number of foreign nouns have become completely naturalized and always take the English plural inflection (asylum ® asylums, bonus ® bonuses, campus ® campuses, encyclop(a)edia ® encyclop(a)edias, virus ® viruses …).

NON-COUNTABLES

Non-countable nouns do not change their form. They are subdivided into two large groups:

1. singular non-countable nouns lacking the plural,
2. plural non-countable nouns lacking the singular.

singular non-countable nouns (p. 51-55)

MASS NOUNS

MATERIALS: chalk, gold, iron, rubber, wood …

FLUIDS: blood, milk, petrol, water, wine …

GASES: air, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, smoke ...

To denote individual quantities mass nouns may be used with specific partitives:

a piece / a loaf / a slice of bread

a piece / a slice of cake, bacon, salami …

a piece / a lump of coal

a piece / a sheet of paper

a piece / a bar of chocolate, soap

Mass (material) nouns can be used as countable nouns in the singular and plural when they denote: