PLURAL FORMATION IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN: A COMPARATIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
Abstract
In every natural language, plural formation is one of the most important morphological processes, and it often reveals structural and historical characteristics of language. This research aims to investigate a comparative linguistic analysis of plural formation in English and German and to identify the central differences and similarities between the two languages. The analysis also focuses on regular and irregular nouns, vowel change, zero plurals, affixation forms, and loanword adaptation. It is considered that both languages are belong to the same language family, while there are numerous differences between two languages. German exhibits a wider range of plural markers and more frequent stem modifications. In contrast, English relies mainly on the -s/-es suffix. At the same time, both languages involve historically irregular forms of nouns. The results of this study are instrumental in a better understanding of the plural morphology of two languages and useful for language teaching and learning contexts.
Keywords
Plural nouns; irregular plurals; English pluralization; German pluralization; umlaut; -s/-es endings; noun inflection; morphology; language comparison.
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