Plurals of Nouns – 2

Just as the most typical masculine nouns are those that end in o, the most typical feminine nouns are those ending in i. But in the case of these nouns, the manner in which they change from their singular to their plurals depends on one peculiar property of theirs: whether they have a single or a double consonant before that i. By single or double consonant I am not referring to the number of consonant letters but the number of consonant sounds. For example, the dd in koddi 

(curry) are two letters but they have a single consonant sound dd. The following are the elementary rules governing the formation of feminine nouns ending in i:

1. Feminine nouns which end in i, and have a single consonant before the i, form their (nominative) plurals by changing the i to iô. 
Examples: boddi 

(stick) becomes boddiô;  topi  (cap) changes to topiô;

 kholi 

 (dry leaf) to kholiô. 

2. Feminine nouns ending in i, and having a double consonant before that i, form their plurals by changing the i into eô.
     Examples: sotri 

(umbrella) changes to sotreô  and xempddi  to xempddeô. 

 Note:  An m or n that nasalizes the preceding vowel (and hence takes the place of an anuswara), is not considered as a vowel. Thus panthi 

forms its plural by changing to panthiô  (not pantheô

).

3. Some feminine nouns, ending in a consonant, form their plurals by taking on an extra vowel ô.
Examples: sangh

(=bean) changes to sanghô 

, baz  (bed) to bazô.

4. Other feminine vowels, ending in a consonant, form their plurals by adding an i instead.
 Examples: kidd 

(worm) changes to kiddi,  and chitt , (letter) to chitti  to form their plurals.

Note:  There is unfortunately no rule to tell us which feminine nouns should take an i and which should take an ô to form their plurals. Also, in some of these cases, the noun may drop its last vowel before taking the new ending to form the plural and there is no general rule that covers that either. For example: the plural of rampônn is rampnni. That has to be learnt as a part of the vocabulary. For instance, it might interest you to know that the word chinch 

can mean either a tamarind or a tamarind tree, and in both cases it is feminine. But if you refer to tamarinds, then it is chinchô, but if you are talking about a tamarind tree, then the plural is formed by adding an i instead: chinchi! 

5. Feminine nouns ending in a remain unchanged in the plural. Examples: pidda 

 (disease), kurpa

(grace).