Outline of Petroleum English for Professional Titles (Nouns)

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Chapter 1: The Number of Nouns 1.1 Understanding Numbers and Their Morphological Changes In Chinese, it is said, “The car has arrived.” ”It is not clear from the wording of this sentence whether it refers to “one or two trucks” or “several trucks”. In other words, the noun forms in Chinese sentences do not convey any meaning related to quantity. In English, however, the noun forms in English sentences carry a meaning of quantity. Use \"car\" to refer to one vehicle, and use \"cars\" to refer to more than one vehicle. In other words, most nouns in English undergo morphological changes when used in sentences. Some English nouns inherently carry a meaning related to quantity; for example, \"child\" refers to one child, while \"children\" refers to more than one child. For another example, in Chinese, when we say an apple, it’s just an apple – there’s no special variation. If you want to say three apples, you just need to replace “one” with “three”. In English, one apple is called “one apple”, and three apples are called “three apples”; not only do the numerals change, but the nouns also change accordingly. 1.2 The Number of Nouns In English, nouns are divided into countable nouns, such as “cars” and “dogs”” ； And uncountable nouns, such as “water” and “love”. Countable nouns have singular and plural forms, indicating one or more items. a book: one book. Two books: two books. To form the plural of a noun, its form changes. Methods are divided into regular changes and irregular changes. 1) Generally, add s. 2) Words ending in s, x, sh, ch add es. 　　3) Words ending in a vowel letter + y simply get + s, such as boy ←→ boys. 　　4) If a noun ends in the consonant + y, change y to i and then add es. Such as city←→cities. 5) For nouns that end in + o and refer to living things, such as potato, add -es ； For inanimate things, such as \"photo\", simply add an \"s\". 6) Words that end in f or fe have f or fe changed to ves; for example, knife (knife) ↔ knives. Of course, the various rules of English were established and developed over time. Irregular changes in nouns can be seen as part of the evolution of nouns, with irregular changes appearing first and regular changes coming later. So for nouns with irregular plural forms, we have no choice but to memorize them one by one. For example, for \"roof\" (roof), its plural form would seemingly be \"rooves\" if rule 6 were applied strictly, but the correct form is actually \"roofs\". Regarding this exception, we can interpret it flexibly as follows: before rule 6) was established, the British already wrote the plural form of \"roof\" as \"roofs\". The rule only applies to nouns that appear later; after the rule is established, the plurals of nouns ending in f or fe change f or fe to ves. There are also the following words with irregular changes that we need to remember. For example: man ←→ men ； woman ←→ women ； foot←→feet ； tooth ←→teeth ； mouse ←→ mice ； ox ←→ oxen ； sheep ↔ sheep ； deer ←→deer ； fish ↔ fish. 1.3 Compound nouns: Generally, countable nouns have plural forms. So, how is the plural form of compound nouns formed? The main situations are as follows: 1. Compound nouns that end with an uncountable noun do not have a plural form. 　　Such as: homework, newspaper, etc. 　　2. When nouns prefixed with man or woman are pluralized, both nouns become plural. 　　For example: woman doctor → women doctors, man waiter → men waiters. 　　3. For compound nouns formed by two nouns (except when the first noun is man or woman), the second noun is generally changed to its plural form. 　　For example: boy friend→boy friends, paper bag→paper bags. 　　4. When a compound noun formed by a \"countable noun + preposition (phrase)\\" is pluralized, the noun at the beginning is pluralized. 　　For example: father-in-law→fathers-in-law. 　　5. When pluralizing compound nouns formed by “verb/past participle + adverb,” add s to the end. 　　For example: grown-up (adult) → grown-ups, stand-by (spare items) → stand-bys. 1.4 Plurality of attributive nouns: Nouns used as attributives are generally in the singular form, but there are exceptions as follows. 1) Use the plural form as an adjective. For example: sports meeting – sports day; students’ reading-room – students’ library; talks table – negotiation table; the foreign languages department – the faculty of foreign languages. 2) When words such as man, woman, gentleman are used as adjectives, their singular or plural form is determined by the singular or plural form of the noun they modify. For example: men workers, women teachers, gentlemen officials. 3) Some nouns that originally end in an ‘s’ retain that ‘s’ when used as adjectives. For example: goods train (freight train), arms produce (weapon production), customs papers (customs documents), clothes brush (clothes brush). 4) When a number and a noun are used as an adjective, the noun generally remains in its singular form. For example: two-dozen eggs means two dozen eggs; a ten-mile walk refers to a distance of ten miles; two-hundred trees means two hundred trees; a five-year plan is a plan that lasts for five years. The singular form of numbers can be used to denote plural meanings – please pay attention to the parts marked in red in the examples above to understand this well. A five-pound note refers to a banknote worth five pounds; a two hundred meter race is a race over a distance of 200 meters; five hundred people means 500 individuals. However, when referring to approximate numbers, the plural form should be used: hundreds of boys means several hundred boys; tens of thousands of people means countless people