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The prepositions à (' to, at ') and de (' of, from ') form contracted forms with the masculine and plural articles le and les: au, du, aux, and des, respectively. Like the, the French definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is. It is necessary in the following ...
French adjectives therefore have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural. A few adjectives have a fifth form, viz. an additional masculine singular form for use in liaison before a noun beginning with a vowel or a "mute h", e.g. un beau jardin, un bel homme, une belle femme, de beaux enfants, de ...
The French terminations -ois / -ais serve as both the singular and plural masculine; adding e (-oise / -aise) makes them singular feminine; es (-oises / -aises) makes them plural feminine. The Spanish and Portuguese termination -o usually denotes the masculine, and is normally changed to feminine by dropping the -o and adding -a.
Demonyms ending in -ese are the same in the singular and plural forms. The ending -man has feminine equivalent -woman (e.g. an Irishman and a Scotswoman). The French terminations -ois / ais serve as both the singular and plural masculine; adding 'e' (-oise / aise) makes them singular feminine; 'es' (-oises / aises) makes them plural
Singular and plural forms are marked from the general form. The general is used when the specific number is deemed irrelevant or unimportant. In this system, the singular is often called the singulative, to distinguish it as derived from a different form. Similarly, the plural derived from the general has been called the plurative. [195]
Just like in English, noun plurals in French, Spanish, and Portuguese are also typically formed by adding an -s suffix to the lemma form, sometimes combining it with an additional vowel. (In French, however, this plural suffix is often not pronounced.) This construction is also found in German and Dutch, but only in some nouns.
The quintessential 1970s buffet party was marked by colorful abundance in the form of finger foods and a good deal of mayonnaise, including dishes such as deviled eggs, nut-studded cheese balls ...
‑eaux is the standard French language plural form of nouns ending in ‑eau, e.g. eau → eaux, château → châteaux, gâteau → gâteaux. In the United States, it often occurs as the ending of Cajun surnames, as well as a replacement for the long "O" (/ oʊ /) sound in some English words as a marker of Cajun, or more broadly Louisiana ...