Appendix:French nouns

French is a Romance language that evolved from Vulgar Latin. It shares many common features with many other Romance languages.

Gender

French has retained two genders from Latin; masculine and feminine. Most neuter nouns in Latin become masculine in French, for example un musée (museum).

Declension

There is no "case system" as in Latin and some other languages. Nouns can have plurals, and when referring to a person, often a job, can have a feminine form.

Nouns don't always agree with the gender of their referent. Un docteur refers to 'a doctor' who could be male or female, except when in its sense meaning 'someone with a doctorate'—this would be une doctoresse for female referrents. Similarly, victime is always feminine, even when denoting someone male.

There are some "neologized" feminine forms that are disputed. Professeure (from professeur) and docteure (from docteur) are just two examples.

While many feminine forms can be created just be adding an -e, there are more rules:

• Nouns ending in -eur have the feminine form -euse, unless the ending is -ateur when the ending becomes -atrice.

  joueur → joueuse

  dominateur → dominatrice

• Less commonly, some feminine forms are created with the suffix -esse.

  demandeur → demanderesse

Proper nouns

Proper nouns usually have genders, apart from cities which usually don't. France is feminine for example, and les États-Unis is masculine plural. This does not only apply to countries, but to most proper nouns. La Renault (the car) for example. Proper nouns, including given names and surnames are usually invariable and cannot be pluralized.

Some groups of words which are proper nouns in English are considered as common nouns in French. Languages, days and months, for example are always lowercase and uncountable common nouns:

• allemand ("German", the language. "German" a person is Allemand)
• anglais (“English language”)
• samedi (“Saturday”)
• février (“February”)

Regular plurals

The regular plural of almost all nouns in French is formed by adding an -s to the singular form. Sometimes this is not possible, so the following plural forms are not generally considered irregular.

• The plural of nouns ending in -s, -x and -z is the same as the singular:

• abus → abus (“abuse”)
• voix → voix (“voice”)
• nez → nez (“nose”)

• Nouns ending with -au, -al and -ail usually have the plural -aux:

• peau → peaux (“skin”)
• cheval → chevaux (“horse”)
• travail → travaux (“work”)

• However many nouns ending in -al and -ail form the plural with just an -s. These are not usually considered 'irregular':

• festival → festivals
• rorqual → rorquals
• portail → portails

Compound nouns

• Noun-noun combinations take an -s for both nouns

• pause-café → pauses-cafés
• voiture-restaurant → voitures-restaurants

• Verb-noun combinations (wherein the noun may be singular or plural) are traditionally invariable

• ouvre-boîtes → ouvre-boîtes
• lèche-cul → lèche-cul

however, since the spelling reforms of 1990 it is also acceptable to pluralize verb-noun combinations as if they were the noun alone

• ouvre-boîte → ouvre-boîtes
• lèche-cul → lèche-culs

Irregular plurals

Borrowings from foreign languages

• Some Latin words retain their plural nominative plurals. This is much rarer than in English and can come over as old-fashioned:

• maximum → maxima
• podium → podia
• nova → novae or novæ

• In these cases, the -s plural is more common: maximums podiums, novas.

• Some words borrowed from English retain their original plurals, such as words ending in -man or -woman:

• businesswoman → businesswomen
• showman → showmen
• tennisman → tennismen

• Again, the -s plural is just as common: businesswomans, showmans, tennismans.

• Plurals ending in -es or -ies in English:

• wallaby → wallabies
• match → matches
• penny → pennies

• Or wallabys, matchs and pennys.

• Some Italian words can have Italian plurals as well:

• veglione → veglioni (all-night party)
• mafioso → mafiosi (member of the Mafia)

• As in English, sometimes the original plural noun is used as the singular, then another s is added:

• spaghetti → spaghettis
• paparazzi → paparazzis

Other irregular plurals

• Some highly irregular plurals include:

• yeux, from œil (“eye”).
• aulx from ail (garlic). Ails is also acceptable.
• cieux from ciel (sky or heaven). Ciels is also acceptable.
• aïeux from aïeul (ancestor, genitor). Aïeuls is also acceptable.
• Touareg from Targui. This plural is derived from the Arabic for Targa, a region in Libya.

• A few words ending in -ou have the -oux plural:

• bijou, caillou, chou, genou, hibou, joujou and pou. Ripou has the plurals ripoux and ripous.

• A few words ending in -au have the plural -aus:

• donau, landau, sarrau, unau.

Invariable nouns

• Invariable or invariant nouns are ones that have identical singular and plural forms. The following nouns are invariable because of their meaning or derivation rather than because they end in -s, -x or -z:

• Numbers:

• quatre, cinq, sept, huit

• But zéro, un, une, vingt, cent and mille, and million can take an -s for various reasons.

• Letters of the alphabet, not limited to the Latin Alphabet:

• alpha, thêta, pi'

• But they can be pluralized if with an -s they have a second meaning: des delta (Greek letters) des deltas (river features)

• Proper nouns, usually given names and surnames:

• Pierre, Christian, les Blanc (surname 'the Blancs')

• Musical notes:

• do, ré, mi, fa