Plural Possessive Nouns

A plural possessive noun is used to represent more than one thing or person and denotes ownership. There are numerous types of nouns, nouns can be defined as words that name people, places and things. However, there are different ways to categorise them, some types will fall into several categories. We will now take a look at different types of nouns and how they may be used.

Common noun: This includes everyday things such as ‘Cat’ ‘dog’
Proper noun: These type of nouns refer to a specific person, place or thing and they are always capitalized. Examples include: Eiffel Tower, Tower of London.

Countable noun: These type of nouns as the name suggests refer to things that can be counted, such as books, trees etc.

Uncountable noun: In contrast to countable nouns these are things that are neither singular nor plural. Examples include: water, luggage, coffee etc.

Collective noun: This refers to a collective or group of things or people. As a whole group is referred to as a unit collective nouns are used as a singular noun, if however there is more than one unit then you would use the plural. Examples include: jury, family, society etc.

Concrete noun: These refer to things that may be experienced through your senses. Examples include: song, salt, family etc.

Abstract noun: These refer to things that cannot be seen, felt or tasted and generally refer to things such as emotions, beliefs. Examples include: trust, sympathy, democracy etc.

Rules for Plural Possessive Nouns

The function of a noun within a sentence can be to refer to the subject or an object. They can modify by either being possessive or an appositive. They can also modify by acting like an adverb or an adjective. For example, in “I went home” the noun “home” modifies the verb “went”, so it is acting like an adverb, indicating “where.” A “storm drain” has the noun “storm” modifying the word “drain”, so it acts like an adjective.

To make a noun plural, which means that there is more than one of them, you would normally need to add an “s.” Certain nouns that end with an s, x, ch, or sh need an “es” added. Examples include:

witches, buses, kisses, boxes, bushes, or Joneses

There are special nouns that have irregular or mutated plurals. Some of these are:

  • child – children
  • woman – women
  • person – people
  • goose – geese
  • mouse – mice
  • deer – deer

Finally, certain words retain their Greek or Latin form when making a plural. Examples include:

  • nucleus – nuclei
  • syllabus – syllabi
  • cactus – cacti
  • thesis – theses
  • fungus – fungi
  • criterion – criteria

Most importantly, remember: A plural possessive noun is used to represent more than one and to show ownership.