Pluralstammen

Pluralstammen, or plural stems, is a term used in morphology to denote the form or set of forms that serve as the base for creating the plural of a word in a given language. In languages with productive plural formation that involves stem changes or suppletion in addition to or instead of simple suffixation, the unit called the pluralstam can differ from the singular stem. The plural stem is what receives plural inflection or undergoes internal changes to express number.

The concept appears in discussions of languages with stem alternations, such as some Germanic languages. In these systems the plural stem may reflect vowel changes (ablaut or umlaut) or consonant modifications that accompany plural endings. Other nouns form plurals by adding endings while keeping the singular stem intact; in such cases the plural stem and the singular stem effectively coincide for most inflectional purposes. The notion of a plural stem highlights that plural formation is not always a simple matter of attaching suffixes to a single, invariant base.

Scholarly terminology varies. Some authors use pluralstammen to refer specifically to the part of the inflectional paradigm that carries plural features, distinct from the singular stem; others employ the term more loosely to denote the plural form as a whole. Studying plural stems helps explain historical sound changes, irregular plural patterns, and relationships among noun classes across languages, and it remains a point of reference in comparative and historical grammar.