A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN PLURAL FORMING RULES IN PERSIAN AND ENGLISH
This article has explored the formation of noun plurals in Persian and English by illustrating the aforementioned examples. After meticulously investigating on each rule of plural forming the followings are found as a summing up: Ø The plurals of both start from the count of two and also have regular and irregular patterns. Ø In Persian the suffix /ҳо/ is mostly used to inanimate rather than animate and suffix /он/ with animate only, therefore persian makes a distinction between animate and inanimate, but English doesn’t make. It marks a major distinction between two languages. Ø In Persian singular countable nouns are changed to plural generally by using / ҳо / or /он/ ; in English singular countable nouns are changed to plural generally by using /s/. Ø When animated beings are pluralized in Persian there is no internal change in the word only suffix is added, but some words in English like man, woman etc. have an internal change rather than the addition of a suffix. Ø /s/ in English equals with /ҳо/ or /он/. Ø There is a major difference between Persian and English in term of using numbers to indicate plurality. In both languages numbers preceded nouns. however , in Persian affixation is not applied when numbers are used with nouns, but it is used in English like: - Чаҳор шогирд ( چهار شاگرد ) = four students - Ду йстакан ( دو گلاس ) = two glasses