NOUN NUMBER/ COUNT NOUNS

                         

                                    COUNT NOUNS

       Nouns can be studied in details by dividing them into 3 parts:
1) noun number
2)noun gender
3)noun case

        Noun Number/ Count Nouns

The study of noun number must be divided into 2 groups: count and non-count nouns.

     (count nouns)

A count noun: a noun which has both singular and plural form .e.g dog- dogs/ lemon- lemons.
Sometimes are thought of as individual items that can be counted directly, most nouns in English are countable nouns, we can distinguish them depending on adding a number before them.

     Count nouns have two forms: the singular and plural form. the singular form is a noun which refers to one individual thing, while the plural form is a noun which refers to more than one thing.

     Count nouns are pluralized by adding (s) or (es) at the end of the noun. we can add 's' to form the plural of most nouns, whereas we add 'es' to nouns ending in (ss, ch, s, sh, x, z). e.g. loss-losses/ bush-bushes/ watch-watches/ quiz-quizes. but some nouns ending in 'o' add 's' and some add 'es'.e.g. photo-photos/piano-pians/ hero-heroes/ potato-potatoes/ tomato-tomatoes.

      The 'y' letter in plural may change its form depending on the letter that comes before it (whether is it a consonant or plural). if it comes after a consonant, the 'y' ending changes its formation to 'ies' in plural form, if not ( it's a vowel), it must be followed by 's' only. e.g. country-countries/ lady-ladies/ party-parties/ victory-victories/ boy-boys/ day-days/ key-keys/ valley-valleys.

      Some common nouns have irregular plurals.e.g. child-children/ ox-oxen/ foot-feet/ man-men/ mouse-mice/ tooth-teeth/ goose-geese.if the noun ending was 'f' or 'fe', we may change it to 'ves' in most times.e.g. loaf-loaves/ lfe-lives/ wife-wives/ thief-thieves/ *exceptions roof-roofs/ gulf-gulfs/ belief-beliefs.some nouns stay without any change when pluralizing, e.g. deer-deer/ sheep-sheep/ series-series/ fish-fish/ species-species/ means-means.nouns that have  foreign fundamentals refer to its origin.e.g. datum-data/ crisis-crises/ focus-foci/ phenomenon-phenomena/ retina- retinae.
     Some nouns look like plural and have the plural function, but they haven't singular forms. e.g. pincers/ pajamas/ scales/ jeans/ scissors.compound nouns pluralize by changing the strongest noun, e.g. mother-in-law/mothers-in-law,if we found 'man' or 'women' we pluralize both nouns in compound nouns, man-servant/ men-servants.

some nouns appear as a plural , but they are singular as names of subjects and some diseases, Politics/ Mathematics/Physics/ Economics/ Mumps/ Measles/News.

  Main articles: Count noun and Mass nounCount nouns or countable nouns are common nouns that can take a plural, can combine with numerals or counting quantifiers (e.g.,one, two, several, every, most), and can take an indefinite article such as a or an (in languages which have such articles). Examples of count nouns are chair, nose, and occasion.
Mass nouns or uncountable (or non-count) nouns differ from count nouns in precisely that respect: they cannot take plurals or combine with number words or the above type of quantifiers. For example, it is not possible to refer to a furniture or three furnitures. This is true even though the pieces of furniture comprising furniture could be counted. Thus the distinction between mass and count nouns should not be made in terms of what sorts of things the nouns refer to, but rather in terms of how the nouns present these entities.^[8][9]Many nouns have both countable and uncountable uses; for example, beer is countable in "give me three beers", but uncountable in "he likes beer".