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Plurals of Nouns – 1

Posted by on December 23, 2014

Since we are going to deal with the plurals of nouns, which are obviously in the nominative case, this grammar topic is actually a subset of Declensions. Konkani  nouns in our vocabulary list are going to include four principal parts: the nominative singular, singular flex stem, nominative plural and the plural flex stem. In this section we are going to deal with the third principal parts of nouns, viz., the nominative plural. Thus we are giving this topic a special treatment because of its importance.  However, today we shall restrict ourselves to masculine nouns only.

1. Masculine nouns that end in o

 , form their plural by changing the o into e.
These are the most regular masculine nouns.

Examples:
ghodd

(horse) becomes ghodde  
(horses), cheddo
 (boy) becomes chedde 
 (boys).

Sometimes, however, the change in the vowel (from o to e) may be accompanied by a change in the preceding consonant as well. This happens in three cases:

a) when the preceding consonant is an s 

which changes to x 
and
b) when the preceding consonant is a z 
which changes to j.
  

Examples:
 a) The plural of kollso 

(= a water pot)  is kollxe;
 the plural of sonso 
(rabbit) is sonxe

b) The plural of bhozo 

(=bhuja or pakoda) is bhoje

There is a third case wherein while the preceding consonant remains the same as far as the spelling is concerned, the sound of that consonant changes.

Example:
Mocho 

(shoe) changes to moche.

2. Masculine nouns whose last vowel is either an ê

 or an ô
form their plurals by opening out the last vowel, i.e. ê
 becomes e,
while ô
 changes to o.

Examples:
Khêll 

(sports, game) becomes khell 
vôdd 
(banyan tree) changes to vodd 
and fatôr 
(stone) forms its plural by changing into fator.
 Exception: xêtt 
(goldsmith) does not change its form in the plural.

3. All other masculine nouns retain the same form in the (nominative) plural.

Examples:
the words raza 

(king), razu 
(rope), kantt 
(edge) remain unchanged in the plural.

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