A noun is a part of speech that carries the meaning of objectivity and has such grammatical categories as gender, number and case. These categories are closely interconnected, therefore their knowledge is necessary for the correct use of nouns. Special attention should be paid to the declension of plural nouns.
Grammatical category of number
The grammatical category is a system of sets of forms that are opposite to each other and have a uniform meaning. In Russian, the category of numbers has names and a verb. It is represented by the opposition of singularity and multiplicity. In the Old Russian language there was a three-membered system of the category of numbers, in which singular, plural and dual numbers stood out .
The grammatical expression of a number
Currently, in the Russian language there is only an opposition between singular and plural. There are no separate forms for expressing only the category of number. To express the number, synthetic and analytical methods are used. The first, main, case involves the use of the internal resource of the word. These are, first of all, the ending (house - at home, cat - cats, road - roads), in some cases suffixes (calf - calves, honey agaric - honey agarics, sky - heaven) and sometimes stress (forest - forests) or alternating consonants ( ear - ears, friend - friends). The analytical (syntactic) way of expressing a number is characterized by the use of matching (old houses, white socks). This method allows you to express the number of non-declining nouns (one coffee - three coffee). In some nouns, the number can be expressed using a different basis (person - people).
The number of nouns
A noun in the singular denotes a single item (cup, phone, wire), in the plural - two or more items (cups, phones, wires). It is easiest to trace the differences between the plural and singular numbers of nouns using examples of words denoting objects that can be counted. For example, a ball - five balls, a table - two tables, an orange - three oranges. Similar nouns are numerical, i.e. it is possible to use these nouns in the singular and plural. But there are quite large groups of words that do not vary in numbers.
Plural Nouns
These nouns include:
names of many similar objects or phenomena (children, foliage, humanity, limestone, linen, junk);
name of objects of material importance (steel, wheat, rye, oats, gasoline, milk, cottage cheese, hay);
name of quality or attribute (blueness, power, anger, warmth, kindness);
name of the action or state (writing, reading, threshing, cutting down);
proper names used to name single objects (Novgorod, Don, Lenin, Stalin);
type words: time, udder.
Singular Nouns
Such nouns are:
names of paired or compound items (underpants, glasses, scissors, gates, gym shoes, pincers);
names of materials or their waste (bran, sawdust, perfume, ink);
names of certain time periods (day, weekdays, holidays);
names of action or state of nature (frosts, choices, chores, shoots);
names of games (hide and seek, checkers, specks, chess, knockers);
some names of geographical places (Alps, Athens, Carpathians, Sokolniki, Sochi, Mud, Luzhniki).
Features of the declension of plural nouns
For each of the three types of declension that exist in the Russian language, their own forms are characteristic when changing by case. To determine the type of declension, you must first determine the initial form of the word. For nouns, this form will be the nominative singular.
However, during the declension of the noun in the plural, signs of the difference in the types of declensions from one another are almost not manifested. Therefore, it is worth talking separately about the declension of nouns in the plural form.
The endings of plural nouns in the dative, instrumental and prepositional cases always coincide regardless of the type of declension. Differences have noun endings in the nominative, genitive and accusative cases.
Plural nouns in the nominative case have the endings:
feminine s, s (threads, mountains, mice, bees, arrows, mothers, daughters);
masculine gender, s (houses, tables, tables, bananas, cartridges), sometimes -a, -i (chairs, meadows, houses, sons), -e in words ending in -an, -yane (earthlings, townspeople, northerners, Rostovites);
the middle gender is -a, -i (lakes, wings, villages), sometimes -i (ears, shoulders, eyelids).
In the genitive, plural nouns end in:
-th - nouns. R. 1st st., Which end in -i, -y (series, cell, arias, armies), some nouns cf. p., which end in -ye (gorge, spears);
-ey - words with a base that ends in a hissing or soft consonant sound (nights, seas, knives);
-ov, -ev - nouns m. with a base that ends in a solid consonant or on-th (ports, heroes), words of cucumbers, oranges, tomatoes, etc.
the zero ending in the genitive case appears in words ending in the nominative case in -an, -yan, -at, -yat (Armenians, city dwellers, badgers, animals), as well as words like: eye, soldier, boot, stocking, etc. P.
-b - if in the noun before the suffix -nya there is a vowel (deserts, mistress, apple trees).
When declension of plural nouns ending in the singular in -nya, a fluent vowel -e appears in the genitive, and b is not written (cherries, towers). An exception in this case are the words: young lady, village, kitchen.
In the genitive plural nouns after the hissing ones it is not spelled irrespective of the gender (groves, shoulders, hands, boots).
The plural nouns in the accusative case are the same as the plural nouns in the nominative or genitive.
So, knowledge of the peculiarities of the declension of nouns in the plural will help to avoid mistakes in both oral and written speech. The ability to quickly determine the singular and plural will be an important skill in determining the initial form of a word.