1. I met some interesting _______ at the meeting last night. (man)
2. I need some ______ to light the fire. (match)
3. The baby got two new _______. (tooth)
4. The farmer loaded his cart with ______ of fresh vegetables to take to market. His cart was pulled by two ______. (box, ox)
5. Alex saw some ______running across the floor. (mouse)
6. The north side of the island has no _____. There are only steep _____. No one can climb these steep walks of rock. (beach, cliff)
7. If a houseplant is given too much water, its lower _____ turn yellow. (leaf)
8. Before Marie signed the contract, she talked to two _________. (attorney)
9. New scientific ________ are made every day in _______ throughout the world. (discovery, laboratory)
10. I caught several ______ in the lake. (fish)
11. On our trip in the mountainous countryside, we saw some ______, ______, ______, and wild ______. (wolf, fox, deer, sheep)
12. When we spoke in the cave, we could hear ______ of our voices. (echo)
13. The music building at the university has 27 ________. Students need to sign up for practice times. (piano)
14. Thunder and lightning are ______ of nature. (phenomenon)
15. People get most of their news about the world through the mass ______, that is, through radio, television, the Internet, newspapers, and magazines. (medium)
2. Make the nouns in brackets plural:
1. The (knife) get rusty when you put them into the water for a long time.
2. The (muff) of their new coats are rather lovely.
3. The (roof) of the houses look neat and nice.
4. In autumn all the (leaf) fall down.
5. They invited two (soprano) to our Opera House.
6. Young artists want to have their own (studio).
7. (Zoo) are popular all over the world.
8. Tom’s body is all covered with (tattoo).
9. We prepared new (memo) for our office.
10. Jack bought three new (piano) for his casino.
11. There are ten (radio) in the box.
12. Larry showed us a lot of (photo).
13. They said they needed two new (video) for their cinema theatre.
14. Look, there are five (cuckoo) in this cage.
3. Give the plural of the following nouns if they have it:
Weather, chalk, house, child, mouse, cucumber, knife, boot, furniture, sheep, plum, deer, country, information, advice, salmon, news, trout, armchair,
means, belief, loaf, zero, tornado, theses, jewellery, fly, donkey, key, day, city, monkey, toy, lady, play, army, boy, spy, cry, sky, dragonfly, butterfly, kerchief, wife, chief, life, leaf, proof, thief, calf, half, shelf, wolf, loaf.
4. Give the singular of the following nouns if they have it:
Armchairs, gymnastics, clothes, spectacles, photos, shorts, cows, schools, pyjamas, enemies, kisses, wives, loaves, cliffs, oxen, men, teeth, grapes, girls, series, riches, people, persons, athletics, news.
5. Choose the noun in brackets to complete each sentence:
1. Hail, thunder, lightning and rain are natural (phenomenon, phenomena).
2. The Hague is the city where a lot of (symposium, symposia) are held.
3. He published all the (analysis, analyses) of his scientific research.
4. At this factory they produce special (bacterium, bacteria) for producing pills.
5. Barbara has a large collection of (cactus, cacti).
6. The (data, datum) in the scientific research are very important.
7. This chemist left a lot of papers with hundreds of (formula, formulae).
8. The Earth moves round its (axis, axes).
9. It was one of the biggest (crisis, crises) in the world.
10. The rules for representing (thesis, theses) change every two years.
6. Make the nouns in brackets plural:
1. How many (person) study English as a second language?
2. Five (woman) opened a computer services company.
3. Even (child) enjoy learning on the Internet.
4. Most basketball players are 6 (foot) tall or more.
5. Which breed of (sheep) produces the finest wool?
6. My (tooth) are sensitive to the cold.
7. At daylight savings time, we have to change our (watch).
8. The boys went fishing and caught 10 (fish).
9. There are 10 (man) in the Maintenance Department.
10. The (wife) keep their (knife) on the (shelf).
INVARIABLE NOUNS
Invariable nouns cannot change their number, some of them are always singular in meaning (linguistics, news), some denote plurality (cattle, police).
Singular invariable nouns
1. Here belong all non-count nouns:
a) material nouns - tea, sugar, gold, silver, oil, butter, sail. (As has been mentioned they may become count nouns with a specific meaning: cheeses - kinds of cheese, beers - portions of beer, as two glasses or cans of beer, two coffees, icecreams.)
b) absrract nouns - music, anger, foolishness.
2. Proper nouns:
The Thames, Henry.
3. Some nouns ending in -s:
a) news - Here is the 10 o’clock news;
means - by this means;
gallows - They fixed up a gallows.
b) some diseases - measles, mumps, rickets, shingles;
However sometimes the usage varies: Mumps is/are a medical problem.
c) some games - billiards, bowls, dominoes, draughts;
But when used attributively no plural is used: a billiard table.
d) some proper nouns - Algiers, Athens, Brussels, Flanders, Marseilles, Naples, Wales, the United Nations, thе United States.
4. Nouns ending in –ics:
classics, linguistics, mathematics, phonetics, athletics, ceramics, ethics, gymnastics, politics, tactics, statistics.
*** Statistics is singular when it refers to a field of study: e.g. Statistics is an interesting field of study. When it refers to particular numbers, it is used as count noun: e.g. This statistic is correct. Those statistics are incorrect.
5. Names of languages:
English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, French.
***The English = people living in England, nation › plural verb
e.g. The English drink tea.
Plural invariable nouns
Plural invariable nouns comprise two types - marked and unmarked plurals.
I. In the first type the form of the noun itself shows plurality. These nouns are rather numerous. Semantically they fall into several groups:
a) names of tools or articles of dress consisting of two equal parts which are joined: bellows, binoculars, breeches, braces, flannels, glasses, pants, pincers, pliers, pyjamas, scales, scissors, shorts, spectacles, suspenders, tights, tongs, trousers, tweeters;
These nouns can be made singular and countable by means of a pair of: a pair of trousers, a pair of scissors. Accordingly they are used with the verb-predicate in the singular (this pair of trousers is...)
b) miscellaneous nouns: annals, antics, archives, arms, ashes, the Commons (the House of Commons), contents, customs, customs-duty, customs-house, earnings, goods, goods train, greens, holidays, summer-holidays, manners, minutes (of the meeting), outskirts, quarters, headquarters, stairs, suds, surroundings, thanks, troops, wages, whereabouts, the Middle Ages, premises,;
c) some proper nouns: the East Indies, the West Indies, the Hebrides, the Highlands, the Midlands, the Netherlands.
d) verbal nouns ending in –ing: savings, earnings, belongings, proceedings, surroundings.
II. In the second type of the plural invariable nouns the meaning of plurality is not marked in any form (hence the term “unmarked plural invariables”). They are usually treated as collective nouns.
English collective nouns denote only living beings (family, police, clergy, cattle, poultry, etc.) and have two categorical meanings: the first - plurality as indivisible whole and the second - discrete plurality that is plurality denoting separate beings. In the latter case these nouns are called nouns of multitude. Thus, one and the same noun may be a collective noun proper and a noun of multitude.
***The difference in two categorical meanings is indicated by the number of the verb-predicate (singular in the first case and plural in the second), as well as by possessive and personal pronouns. The meaning of the predicate is also important: predicates denoting physiological processes or states, emotional or psychic reactions, states always imply separate beings involved into it. Compare the following examples:
| Collective nouns proper | Nouns of multitude |
| The family was large The cattle is in the mountains The crew on the ship was excellent. The crowd was enormous. The committee was unanimous. | The family were fond oftheir house. The cattle are grasing there. The crew have taken their posts. The crowd were watching the scene spell-bound. The committee were divided in their opinion. |
Discrete plurality is also expressed by substantivized adjectives denoting people:
the helpless, the needy, the poor, the sick, the weary, the rich.
*** people = “ nation” › countable noun
e.g. This is an organization of English-speaking peoples.
EXERCISES
