25 Sep Grammatical number: singular, plural
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In previous posts we talked about gender agreement (feminine or masculine) between nouns and the words that accompany them. In this post, we will look at number agreement between these same words.
Number is a characteristic grammatical property of nouns and other words such as adjectives, determinants, etc. It can be singular (casa) or plural (casas). In the case of nouns (substantives), the number tells us if there are one or more beings.
The singular does not have any special form, however, plurals can vary greatly, although they are generally formed by adding -s or -es to the end of words in the singular form.
There are some general rules for forming plurals:
- Nouns ending in an unstressed vowels (-a, -e, -i, -o, -u) and in -á, -é, -ó, form the plural with -s.
La oreja 👂 – las orejas 👂👂 El sofá 🛋 – los sofás🛋🛋
El coche – los coches El café – los cafés
El alioli – los aliolis
El número – los números El dominó – los dominós
El espíritu – los espíritus
- Nouns ending in -í, -ú, form the plural with -s and -es.
El bisturí – los bisturís – los bisturíes
El iglú – los iglús – los iglúes
¡Cuidado!
Excepciones: el esquí – los esquís / el menú – los menús / el champú – los champús
- Nouns ending in consonant are formed with the plural -es. Except for words ending in -as, -es, -is, -os, -us (atones), these words do not change. Words that end in -z, change z> c when they form the plural.
El limón – los limones El paraguas – los paraguas
El árbol – los árboles El lunes – los lunes
El alud – los aludes El análisis – los análisis
La flor – las flores El rascacielos – los rascacielos
El país – los países El virus – los virus
El francés – los franceses
La ley – las leyes El pez – los peces
- Proper nouns are rarely used in the plural, but if it’s necessary to do so, it is done the same way as discussed above with common nouns. In the case of compound nouns, only the second becomes plural.
Hay una Ana en mi clase. Hay una Ana María en mi clase.
Hay tres Anas en mi clase. Hay tres Ana Marías en mi clase.
As we said at the beginning, the words that accompany the nouns must agree with them in number. Plural nouns must be must be accompanied by adjectives and determinants that are also plural.
El coche rojo – Los coches rojos.
Mi mesa es grande. – Mis mesas son grandes.
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