English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
A2.2 Number: singular and plural
A2 Nouns
Section A. Introduction
The change in form between singular and plural, or rather the choice between the two, is called ’number’. This is a word you already know, but here it is being used in a slightly different way, as a technical term.
Number is an obligatory choice in English (unlike some languages). Nouns must be either singular or plural: table/tables. However, not all nouns in English have both a singular and plural (and this means that on its own it is not always a reliable test of whether a word is a noun). There are some nouns which only occur in the singular; we will look at them later in this section.
Plural nouns
There are also some nouns that only occur as plurals; here are some examples: binoculars, clothes, glasses, jeans, scissors, shorts, trousers, underpants
They look just like any other plural, but it is not possible to remove the ’-s’ to make a singular form; ’clothe’ is not acceptable. And it is not possible to use a number in front: ’two clothes’, though a plural quantifier is possible: many clothes. In other cases a singular is possible but it has a different meaning, for example, a short means a strong alcoholic drink in a small glass. Where needed, a counting expression, such as a pair of, can be used to make them countable:
a pair of scissors
As you can see from the examples above, several plural nouns refer to items of clothing or tools, but there are many others:
arms, authorities, congratulations, contents, goods, grounds, surroundings, thanks, troops
See the Website Reference A2.1 for more examples.
Activity A2.4
Try to turn the underlined plural nouns into the singular, adding a if necessary. What effect does this have? Use a good dictionary if you are not sure.
1. On arrival you will need to pass through immigration and customs.
2. She took off her glasses and looked him straight in the eye.
3. The house is surrounded by extensive grounds.
4. You are always in our thoughts.
Problems with number
In addition to plural nouns, there are other problems with number:
□ there are words that look plural, in that they seem to have an added -s, but which in fact are singular, for example, measles, news, mathematics. You can tell this by looking at the following verb if the noun is a subject:
The news is very bad.
See the Website Reference A2.2 for more examples.
□ there are words which look singular but are plural: cattle, police, people The police have been informed.
These are similar to the plural nouns above.
□ there are some nouns referring to groups of people, called ’collective’ nouns, which can be plural or singular, depending on whether they are regarded as a single group or as a collection of individuals: committee, enemy, family, government, team
Her family has produced many politicians.
Her family have threatened to disown her.
The plural is the normal choice with the names of football teams because they are regarded as a collection of individuals:
Manchester United are coming to play here.
See the Website Reference A2.3 for more examples.
The relationship between nouns (as subjects) and verbs is called ’agreement’. It is discussed in more detail in A8.
The meaning of number
What is the difference in meaning between singular and plural? The answer seems to be simple: it is ’one’ of something vs ’more than one’. But as we saw with collective nouns, it is often possible to see some things in two ways. And there are some nouns that seem to contradict this principle. Thus some plural nouns, such as scissors and trousers, are clearly referring to one item (although originally they were made of two parts). Section A8 deals with more cases where the issue of number is not so simple, where grammar and meaning are in ’disagreement’.