Gender and Numbers in Grammar

1. Gender

Grammatical gender is a system of noun classification.

A noun's gender determines how it behaves with other words.
In English, nouns are categorized as masculine, feminine, or neuter depending on their
meaning. Most nouns are neuter, unless they obviously refer to something male or female.
For example:
The man takes his coat.
(The gender of man is masculine.)
The woman lost her bag.
(The gender of woman is feminine.)
The dog found its own way home.
(The gender of dog is neuter in this example.)
Only the third person pronouns (i.e., he, his, she, her, hers, it, and its) reflect gender.

Examples of Gender
Here are some examples of nouns and their genders:
Noun Gender Example
Cup Neuter Where's my cup? I have lost it.
Boy Masculine Has that boy finished his chores?
Princess Feminine The princess has eaten hers.

EXAMPLES
Masculine Feminine Neuter
man woman person
father mother parent
boy girl child
uncle aunt
husband wife spouse
actor actress
prince princess
waiter waitress server
rooster hen chicken
stallion mare horse

1
2. Numbers
Number is a form of the noun, by which we know whether the name (noun) refers to one of
something or more than one of that thing.
Number is a grammatical category which relates to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs
When the thing named is one, we say that the noun has a Singular number.
If the thing named is more than one, we say that the noun has a Plural number.
Examples of Grammatical Number
Below are examples of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs in the two number
categories:
Word Type Number Category
Singular Example Plural Example
Noun cat, mouse,man,girl cats, mice,men,girls
Pronoun I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it we, us, you, they, them
Adjective this, that, a, an, my, your, his, her, its these, those, our, your, their
Verb am, is, was, has, I play, he plays Are, were, have, they play
Pattern of Singular and Plural in English:
Singular Plural Method
1 chair, girl, goat, chairs, girls, goats, Adding 's'. This is the most
computer, stone, computers, stones, tables, common way of forming
table, uncle, teacher uncles, teachers the plural.
2 mango, tomato, box, mangoes, tomatoes, Add 'es' for words ending in
tax, match, watch, boxes, taxes, matches, 'o', 'x', 'ch' or 'sh'.
catch, stitch, lash, watches, catches, stitches,
crash lashes, crashes
3 photo, dynamo, piano, photos, dynamos, pianos, Exceptions to no. 2 above.
stomach stomachs Add only 's'. The first three
words are commonly used
short forms for photograph,
dynamoelectric, pianoforte.
In the word stomach, the
'ch' is pronounced as 'k'
4 bamboo, igloo, cuckoo bamboos, igloos, cuckoos Add 's' for words ending in
'oo'
5 boy, donkey, day, key, boys, donkeys, days, keys, Add 's' to words ending in
bay, way, toy, bays, ways, toys 'y' before which comes a
vowel letter.
6 lady, lorry, body, ladies, lorries, bodies, Add 'es' after changing the
berry, story berries, stories 'y' into 'i'. This is for words
which end in 'y' and have
a consonant letter coming
before the 'y'.
7 leaf, wife, life, thief, leaves, wives, lives, Change the 'f' or 'fe' ending
sheaf thieves, sheaves of these words into 'v' and
then add 'es'.

2
8 brief, chief, roof, belief briefs, chiefs, roofs, beliefs These words are exceptions
to the ones given in 7
above.
9 scarf, hoof scarves or scarfs, hooves Both forms of plural (nos. 7
or hoofs and 8 above) can be used
for these words.
10 man, tooth, goose, men, teeth, geese, feet The vowel sound (between
foot two consonant sounds) is
changed to form the plural.
11 louse, mouse lice, mice The same rule as in 10
above, except that the last
consonant (sound) has also
its spelling changed.
12 deer, sheep deer, sheep The plural is the same as
the singular.
13 hundred, thousand, (two) hundred, When a number comes
million (five) thousand, (seven) before these words, the
million plural is the same as the
OR singular.
hundreds (of trees), At other times, we can have
thousands (of people), the plural form with an 's'.
millions (of stars).
14 No singular scissors, pants, pliers, These words have no
tongs, pincers, tweezers singular form
15 measles,diabetes, No plural These words appear to be
mumps, aerobics, plural, but they are singular
gymnastics, always.
economics,
mathematics, politics
16 child, ox children, oxen by adding 'ren' or 'en'
17 son-in-law, sons-in-law, In compound words:
commander-in-chief, commanders-in-chief, The change may be in the
grand-parent, BUT first part of the word, or in
step-daughter, grand-parents, the last. Sometimes both
man-servant step-daughters, parts change. These
AND changes depend mostly on
men-servants the meaning of the word.