Foreign languages faculty

CHAPTER 2. CONCEPT OF PLURALITY AND SINGULARITY
2.1 Characteristics of usage of plural and singular forms
English is one of important subjects by which EFL students in Indonesia learn it. In learning English, students should be mastered the four useful skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) for communication. They can use books, magazines, radio, TV, and internet to help them in daily activities and in their environment. Besides, grammar is also needed in helping the students to master all of those skills. Grammar or structure is one of the aspects of language that should be learned by the students in order to be able to use English for communication in spoken and written forms.⁴ As we know, grammar is the basic of English. It is used in all aspects of English for instance in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Grammar, as one of the elements in English language, has an important role in the use of language. It is a description of the structure of the language and the way in which linguistic units such as word, phrases, and clauses are combined to produce sentences in the language. By following the rules, the pattern of the sentence can be identified and readers will easily understand the sentence. With grammar, words can be arranged to form some acceptable English sentences. It can be concluded that we should know English grammar in order to be able to use English. Some students, however, do not have enough knowledge on grammar. They do not know how to express a good sentence. In other words, English should be expressed by understanding the element of the language itself. There are many elements of grammar for instances tenses, verbs, preposition, punctuation, nouns, etc. and one of the elements in grammar which is important to be considered during the English teaching and learning process is noun. The writer chose noun because based on short observation, the result of students who learned noun is still low. They get difficulties and confusion to determine and distinguish which one is noun of the paragraph, especially about plural and singular. From the abundance of activities between which an English teacher can choose regarding the instruction of grammatical categories, songs and games may perhaps seem the most appropriate due to their appeal. These activities contribute to breaking the monotony of lessons, can be easily linked with kinetic activities and stimulate creativity as they offer the option of implementing various activities in class. In fact, recent studies by Feigenson and colleagues dealing with the set-size limit of object files have provided evidence that prelinguistic infantsfail to draw on the singular–plural distinction. Consider the following experiment: Twelve-month-old infants watch while sets of crackers are placed into two different bucket. In this case, infants then choose the bucket with more crackers. Nevertheless, when one set of crackers
According to Jean a plural noun names or two or more people, animals, places, things, or abstractions. Christine says plural nouns name more than one person, place, or idea. In English, the formation of plurals is simpler than many other. Sitompul plural noun consists of two kinds, namely regular plural form and irregular plural noun.
a) To make most plural nouns, add –s One bird two birds One street two streets One rose two roses
b) Add –es to nouns ending in –sh, -ch, -ss, and –x One dish two dishes One match two matches One class two classes One box two boxes
c) If a noun ends in a consonant + -y, change the y to i and add –es, as in, if -y is preceded by a vowel, add only –s, as in. One baby two babies One city two cities One toy two toys One key two keys
2. Irregular Plural Form
a) If a noun ends in –fe or –f, change the ending to –ves. (exceptions: beliefs, chiefs, roofs, cuffs, cliffs.) One knife two knives One shelf two shelves⁵
b) The plural form of nouns that end in –o is sometimes –oes and sometimes –os. One tomato two tomatoes One zoo two zoos One zero two zeroes/zeros
c) There is some irregular plural form that should be memorized. A man two men A woman five women A tooth four teeth A foot six feet A goose two geese A mouse five mice A louse four lice A child two children An ox two oxen
d) Add –s to compound nouns A looker-on two lookers-on A passer-by four passers-by
e) The plural form of some nouns is the same as the singular form. One sheep two sheep One deer five deer
f) There are some plural nouns but seen singular. It do not have singular form. Cattle, People, etc.
g) The names for field of science are always in plural form, although a means of singular. Politics, ethics, physics, metaphysics, mathematics, etc.
h) The names for field of science are always in plural form, although a means of singular. The plural form is in a pair. Shoes a pair of shoes Sandals a pair of sandals Trousers a pair of trousers Scissors a pair of scissors. Then the researcher analyzed the score to find out the ability of each student, it means how many students excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor to identify of singular nouns in paragraph.⁶
If instruction of a foreign language is to begin at this age, which is not a rare occurence (we are witnesses to an increasingly early exposure of children to foreign languages in schools/play groups that include a programme in a foreign language, bilingual families and extended families, nannies that teach children their own mother tongue, etc.), the anatomy of the human body can serve as the ideal context for teaching the concept of the singularity and plurality of nouns. For this purpose, children's songs and games can be efficiently used within English lessons. Grammatical content is acquired through three phases: noticing, structuring and proceduralising. In the proceduralisation phase, the teacher's role is to assist in the acquisition of the correct forms of nouns forming irregular plural. By combining children's songs, games that involve movement and an increase in the children's participation, this content can be successfully acquired with only a hint of grammatical metalanguage, as it is systematically taught only in the later phases of learning the English language.
Plural nouns are words used to indicate that there is more than one person, animal, place, thing, or idea. The difference between singular and plural nouns is simple once you know what to look for. Here, we take a look at singular and plural nouns, providing both singular nouns examples and plural noun examples to help you recognize plural nouns when you see them. The answer is a relatively easy one, as grammar goes. A plural noun is a word that indicates that there is more than one person, animal place, thing, or idea. When you talk about more than one of anything, you’re using plural nouns. When you write about more than one of anything, you usually use the same word, simply adding an s, es, or ies to the end. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many – one of the best is that a single moose is a moose, and a group of moose are still moose. The difference between singular and plural nouns is easy to spot. When a noun indicates one only, it is a singular noun. When a noun indicates more than one, it is plural. A given language may make plural forms of nouns by various types of inflection, including the addition of affixes, like the English -(e)s ending, or ablaut, as in the derivation of the plural geese from goose, or a combination of the two. Some languages may also form plurals by reduplication, but not as productive. It may be that some nouns are not marked for plural, like sheep and series in English. In languages which also have a case system, such as Latin and Russian, nouns can have not just one plural form but several, corresponding to the various cases.⁷ The inflection might affect multiple words, not just the noun; and the noun itself need not become plural as such, other parts of the expression indicate the plurality. In English, the most common formation of plural nouns is by adding an -s suffix to the singular noun. Just like in English, noun plurals in French, Spanish and Portuguese are also typically formed by adding an -s suffix to the lemma form, sometimes combining it with an additional vowel. This construction is also found, but only in some nouns. Suffixing is cross-linguistically the most common method of forming plurals. Certain nouns do not form plurals. A large class of such nouns in many languages is that of uncountable nouns, representing mass or abstract concepts such as air, information, physics. However, many nouns of this type also have countable meanings or other contexts in which a plural can be used; for example water can take a plural when it means water from a particular source and in expressions like by the waters of Babylon. There are also nouns found exclusively or almost exclusively in the plural, such as the English scissors. These are referred to with the term plurale tantum. Occasionally, a plural form can pull double duty as the singular form , as has happened with the word "data. As the problems in that sentence demonstrate, it's important to pay attention to whether the nouns we use are singular or plural and to know how to make nouns plural the right way. Most nouns are easily made plural, but as with a lot of things in the English language, there are a few nouns for which different rules apply. A singular noun names one person, place, thing, or idea, while a plural noun names more than one person, place, thing, or idea. There are a few basic rules to remember when it comes to turning a singular noun into a plural noun.