章振邦英语语法教程--Lecture-7-Number-and-Genitive资料.doc

Lecture7NumberandGenitive

7.1Number

Inthebroadestsenseoftheword,NUMBERreferstoagrammaticalclassificationusedintheanalysisofwordclasseswhichhavecontrastsbetweensingularandplural.NumbercontrastsinEnglishareseeninnouns(boy,boys),pronouns(she,they,this,these),determiners(this,these,each,all),andverbs(say,says,was,were).Butinthepresentlecture,thesenseofNUMBERisrestrictedonlytothenumberformsinnouns.

1)Regularandirregularplural

Individualnounsareallcountableandthereforehavesingularandpluralforms.Thesingularformofanindividualnoun,whichsharesthesameformasthebaseoftheword,cantakesuchdeterminersasa(n)andone(e.g.:a/onedesk,an/onearticle).Thepluralformofanindividualnouncanberegularorirregular.Theregularpluralisformedbyadding–sor–estothebase(e.g.:days,houses,donkeys,tomatoes,boxes,churches,brushes,classes,babies,countries,loaves,wives,etc/),whiletheirregularpluralisnotformedinthesamewaybutbyothermeanssuchasbychangingtheinternalvowelsorbychangingtheendingofthenoun(e.g.:tooth—teeth,man—men,mouse—mice,child—children,ox—oxen).

Irregularpluralsalsoincludesomewordsofforeignorigin,borrowedfromGreek,LatinorFrench.Thepluralformsoftheseborrowedwordsareknownas“foreignplurals”,e.g.:

basis—basescriterion—criteria

stratum—strataalumnus—alumni

Someborrowedwordshavetwoplurals—aforeignpluralandanEnglishplural,e.g.:

medium—media—mediums

index—indices—indexes

formula—formulae—formulas

curriculum—curricula—curriculums

Forsomenouns,theirsingularandpluralnumberssharethesameform,e.g.:

adeer—tendeer

onefish—severalfish

aJapanese—agroupofJapanese

anaircraft—ahundredaircraft

2)Numberformsofthecollective,material,abstractandpropernoun

a)Numberformsofthecollectivenoun

Somecollectivenounsarecountable,somearenot.