Pluraal

Pluraal, or plural, is a grammatical category used by languages to express that there is more than one referent. It contrasts with singular, which marks a single referent. The pluraal form can appear on nouns, pronouns, determiners, and adjectives, and it often influences the form of verbs or other modifiers in a sentence.

Across languages, plural is realized in different ways. Some languages form plurals by adding suffixes to the noun, others by changing the noun stem, and some use separate words to indicate plurality. In Dutch, plurals are commonly formed by adding suffixes such as -en or -s; some words involve vowel changes or irregular forms. A subset of nouns are plurale tantum, existing only in plural form in some languages. An example in Dutch is boek turning into boeken, and auto turning into auto's.

Plurals interact with other parts of speech in a sentence. In many languages, determiners and adjectives may take plural endings when used with a plural noun, and verbs may agree in number with the subject. Some languages also extend number beyond singular and plural, such as dual or paucal systems, while others maintain only two categories or rely on context. Plural forms thus help convey quantity, reference, and agreement within discourse, reflecting broader patterns of grammatical number across languages.