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 refers to 'a doctor' who could be male or female, except when in its sense meaning 'someone with a doctorate'—this would be une  for female referrents. Similarly, is always feminine, even when denoting someone male.

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

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


 * Nouns ending in have the feminine form, unless the ending is  when the ending becomes.
 * Less commonly, some feminine forms are created with the suffix.
 * Less commonly, some feminine forms are created with the suffix.
 * Less commonly, some feminine forms are created with the suffix.

Proper nouns
Proper nouns usually have genders, apart from cities which usually don't. 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:
 * ("German", the language. "German" a person is )

Regular plurals
The regular plural of almost all nouns in French is formed by adding an 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, and  is the same as the singular:


 * Nouns ending with, and  usually have the plural :


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

Compound nouns

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


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


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

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:
 * → or
 * → or
 * → or


 * In these cases, the -s plural is more common:,.


 * Some words borrowed from English retain their original plurals, such as words ending in or :




 * Again, the -s plural is just as common:, ,.


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


 * Or, and.


 * Some Italian words can have Italian plurals as well:
 * → (all-night party)
 * → (member of the Mafia)


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

Other irregular plurals

 * Some highly irregular plurals include:


 * , from.
 * from ail . is also acceptable.
 * from ( or ).  is also acceptable.
 * from aïeul . is also acceptable.
 * from . This plural is derived from the Arabic for, a region in Libya.


 * A few words ending in have the  plural:


 * ,, , , , and .  has the plurals  and.


 * A few words ending in have the plural :



Invariable nouns

 * Invariable or 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:


 * But, , , , and , and  can take an -s for various reasons.


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


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


 * Proper nouns, usually given names and surnames:
 * ,, les (surname 'the Blancs')


 * Musical notes:

fr:Annexe:Substantifs en français