pluralisatie

Pluralisatie is the process by which languages mark nouns (and related parts of speech) to indicate more than one referent. It is a fundamental aspect of morphosyntax and varies across languages in form, productivity, and regularity.

Mechanisms of pluralisation include affixation (adding suffixes or, less often, prefixes), vowel changes (ablaut or umlaut), or internal stem modifications. Some languages use a separate word or a determiners to indicate plurality, and others rely on zero plural—where the base form remains the same and plurality is shown through numerals or context.

Languages differ in how productive or regular their plural forms are. English largely uses suffixes -s or -es for regular plurals (book → books, dish → dishes) but has irregular plurals such as man → men, mouse → mice, and child → children. Some loanwords follow predictable patterns (cactus → cacti; phenomenon → phenomena). Other plurals involve stem changes or suppletion rather than straightforward affixation.

Cross-linguistic patterns include the use of -en or -er/-ren endings in Dutch, umlauted or internally changed vowels in several Germanic languages, and extensive zero-plural systems in some languages. In many languages, plural forms interact with other parts of grammar, such as articles, adjectives, and verb agreement, which may reflect number.

In linguistic study, pluralisation is examined as a matter of morphology, syntax, and semantics. In practical applications, such as language processing, plural forms affect stemming, lemmatization, and accurate generation of number-marked nouns. Pluralisation thus spans historical change, grammar, and real-world usage.