Forming Plurals of Irregular English Nouns

Stem and Ending Changes to Create Plural Nouns in English

Sep 29, 2009 Heather Marie Kosur

The following article explains how to form the plurals of irregular English nouns through stem changes and ending changes.

Prototypical English nouns have both singular and plural forms. Singular nouns reference one "person, place, thing, or idea" while plural nouns reference two or more "people, places, things, or ideas." The following sections explain how to form the plural forms of irregular English nouns.

Forming Irregular Plural Nouns

Unlike most English nouns through which -s or ­-es suffixation creates the plural forms, irregular English nouns require different changes from the singular to the plural. Some irregular English nouns require a vowel sound change, or ablaut, between the singular and plural forms. For example:

  • foot – feet
  • goose – geese
  • louse – lice
  • man – men
  • mouse – mice
  • person – people (vowel and consonant sound changes)
  • tooth – teeth
  • woman – women

Some irregular nouns in English are formed by the addition of an -en suffix. For example:

  • child – children
  • ox – oxen
  • hose – hosen (archaic)
  • brother – brethren (archaic)

For other irregular English nouns, the plural form is identical to the singular form. For example:

  • bison
  • deer
  • fish
  • moose
  • offspring
  • sheep

Forming Foreign Loanword Plurals

Many loanwords from foreign languages have irregular plural forms. For Latin loanwords that end in a, change the a to an ae. For example:

  • alumna – alumnae
  • formula – formulae

For Latin loanwords that end in ex or ix, change the ex or ix to ices. For example:

  • index – indices/indexes
  • matrix – matrices
  • vertex – vertices

For Latin loanwords that end in is, change the is to an es. For example:

  • analysis – analyses
  • axis – axes
  • crisis – crises
  • testis – testes
  • thesis – theses

For Latin loanwords that end in on, change the on to an a. For example:

  • automaton – automata
  • criterion – criteria
  • phenomenon – phenomena

For Latin loanwords that end in um, change the um to an a. For example:

  • addendum – addenda
  • datum – data
  • medium – media
  • memorandum – memoranda
  • millennium – millennia

For Latin loanwords that end in us, change the us to an i, era, ora, or es. For example:

  • alumnus – alumni
  • cactus - cacti
  • corpus – corpora
  • census – censuses
  • focus – foci
  • fungus – fungi
  • genus – genera
  • radius – radii
  • syllabus – syllabi
  • uterus – uteri
  • viscus – viscera

For Greek loanwords that end in ma, add the suffix -ta to the end of the word. For example:

  • dogma – dogmata
  • schema – schemata
  • stigma – stigmata
  • stoma – stomata

For some French loanwords that end in eau, add a silent -x suffix to the end of the word. For example:

  • beau – beaux
  • bureau – bureaux/bureaus
  • château – châteaux

For some Hebrew loanwords, add the suffix -im or -ot to the end of the word. For example:

  • cherub – cherubim
  • matzah – matzot
  • seraph – seraphim

Irregular English nouns regular either stem changes or ending changes (or sometimes both) in the plural. Loanwords from foreign languages also often have irregular plural forms depending on the language from which the noun was borrowed. Both native speakers and ESL students must learn the plural forms of irregular nouns in English in order to talk or write about two or more people, places, things, or ideas.

For more information on how to use nouns in phrases and clauses, please read The Noun Phrase in English: Describing Nouns with Determinatives, Modifiers, and Complements and English Nouns and Noun Phrases: The Ten Functions of Nouns in English Grammar.

Sources

Hopper, Paul J. A Short Course in Grammar. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1999.

Huddleston, Rodney. Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1984.

"Irregular Plurals of Nouns." Study Zone. 2008. University of Victoria's English Language Centre. 28 Sep. 2009.

Mallory, Kaye Mastin. "Irregular Plurals List." English-Zone. English-Zone. 28 Sep. 2009.

The copyright of the article Forming Plurals of Irregular English Nouns in Language Study is owned by Heather Marie Kosur. Permission to republish Forming Plurals of Irregular English Nouns in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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