Concrete Abstract Concrete Abstract

2. There are four important features often suggested from a morphological and syntactical points of view for nouns:

A They are words which can be the head of a noun phrase.

B They are words which can be the subject of a clause.

C They are words which can have a plural form.

D They are words which display a suffix, e.g. –tion, -hood.

Discuss whether the examples of nouns mentioned in (1) are “noun-like” in the same way by applying criteria A - B.

3. What groups can you sort out the following nouns into? What are the criteria by which you differentiate them? How can you change the scheme in (1) above?

Economics, maths, politics, athletics, billiards, dominoes, mumps, measles, news, five hundred thousand pounds, jury, crew, army, stairs, (good) looks, premises, earnings, poultry, pyjamas, tights, glasses.

4. Do we always use verbs in the plural with nouns which end in –s?

5. Complete the tables filling in the gaps in the rules you can make by analyzing examples:

Examples	We Use Plural Verb Forms With
Designer clothes are rather expensive Also: clothes, people, police, stairs, (good) looks, surroundings, outskirts, premises, earnings, wages, cattle, poultry, etc.	♦ nouns ______
Where are your gloves? I was given a pair of gloves. Also: trousers, binoculars, shorts, shoes, gloves, pyjamas, tights, glasses, earrings, socks, scissors, etc.	♦ nouns which refer to objects that consist of ___________
The jury consists of twelve people. The jury are all staying at the Park Hotel.	♦ ______________ nouns. But we use plural verbs when we mean the individuals who make up the group.

6. Work out the rules how to build the plural of irregular nouns which retain their original Greek or Latin forms by analyzing examples:

EXAMPLES	rules
focus-foci; nucleus – nuclei	Some nouns ending in “us” have plurals ending in ______________
aquarium - aquaria; memorandum – memoranda, genus – genera	Some nouns ending in “um” have plurals ending in ______________
criterion – criteria, phenomenon-phenomena	Some nouns ending in “on” have plurals ending in ______________
analysis – analyses; axis – axes, appendix – appendices/appendixes, matrix – matrices	Most nouns ending in “is” have plurals in which the “is” is replaced by ______________
larva- larvae	With some nouns ending in “a”, the plurals are formed by adding ______________
automation – automata/automatons; corpus – corpora; ; tempo – tempi/tempos; virtuosu – virtuosi/virtuosos	Other nouns form their plurals __________

7. Check up whether your rules work by making the following nouns plural and then consulting the dictionaries. Remember that some of them, e.g. formula, amoeba, and nebula, also have less formal plurals ending in “s”:

basis – _________; radius – _________ ; formula - _________ , crisis – _________; referendum – _________; stimulus – __________; spectrum – _________; diagnosis – _________; antenna- _________ , neurosis – _________; index – ___________; stratum – _________ ; hypothesis – _________; phenomenon –_________; parenthesis – _________.

Golden Rules

Singular nounsfor groupsof people often have plural verbs and pronounsin British English, especially when we are talking about personal kinds of action. Compare:

My family are very angry with me: theythink I should earn my living.

The average family has3.5 members: itis much smaller than in 1900.

The team aregoing to lose again. They'reuseless.

A cricket team ismade up of eleven players, including itscaptain.

The following singular expressionsalso usually have plural verbs:

a number of... the majority of... a couple of... a group of... a lot of+ plural noun/pronoun, the rest of+ plural noun/pronoun.

A number of us aretruly excited about it.

The majority are good team workers.

There are a couple of tasks to be done today.

A lot of them were beyond the deadline.

The rest of our employees are on sick leave.

Some plural expressionshave singularverbs:

names of quantities, plural names of countries, compound nouns joined by and, more than one + singular noun.

Fifty dollars is too much to pay.

Two weeks wasn't enough holiday.

The United States is smaller than Canada.

Fish and chips costs £6.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1067

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