SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE “INTEGRATION OF MODERN LINGUISTICS WITH SCIENCE, EDUCATION, AND PRACTICE IN THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION: NEW APPROACHES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND CHALLENGES”, DECEMBER 4, 2025 33 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES 1Iroda Asadullayeva, 1Sarvinoz Qosimova, 1Bonu Rajabova, 1Mohichehra Shodiyeva, 2Utayeva Malika Akmalovna 1NSU,2Scientific advisor https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17785808 Annotation. Plurality shows a fundamental grammatical category in both English and Uzbek, representing that a noun refers more than one entity in a particular context. This extended article offers a detailed examination of how plural nouns are formed into two languages by examining their morphological, syntactic, semantic and functional characteristics. As for examples from literary source, theoretical grammar, and linguistic typology, it displays the methods of pluralization. Key words: plural, singular, morphology, analytical language, synthetic language, irregular form, number category, agreement, typology. Аннотация. Множественное число является фундаментальной грамматической категорией как в английском, так и в узбекском языках, поскольку существительное обозначает более одного объекта в определённом контексте. В этой обширной статье подробно рассматривается образование множественного числа существительных в двух языках, анализируются их морфологические, синтаксические, семантические и функциональные характеристики. На примерах из литературных источников, теоретической грамматики и лингвистической типологии показаны способы образования множественного числа. Ключевые слова: множественное число, единственное число, морфология, аналитический язык, синтетический язык, неправильная форма, категория числа, согласование, типология. Annotatsiya. Koʻplik ingliz va oʻzbek tillarida asosiy grammatik kategoriyani koʻrsatadi, yaʼni ot maʼlum bir kontekstda birlikni ifodalaydi. Ushbu kengaytirilgan maqola koʻplik otlarining ikki tilga qanday shakllanishini ularning morfologik, sintaktik, semantik va funktsional xususiyatlarini oʻrganish orqali batafsil oʻrganishni taklif qiladi. Adabiy manbalar, nazariy grammatika va lingvistik tipologiyadan misollarga kelsak, u koʻpliklashtirish usullarini koʻrsatadi. Kalit so’zlar: ko‘plik, birlik, morfologiya, analitik til, sintetik til, tartibsiz shakl, son kategoriyasi, kelishik, tipologiya. Grammatical structures have a profound role in mastering L2 in an effective way. In order to learn a target language, most students count on their own language rules. Although this reliance makes the learning process straightforward, it may cause some errors on this way, especially when two languages differ structurally. One of these confusions is related to make plural forms of noun. Also, this difference occurs between English and Uzbek languages. In the following parts of this article, I will compare these languages based on plurality, highlighting small changes at the end of a noun word,how plurals behave in a sentence,exceptions to the rules,meaning differences, where and when plural is used. INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE “INTEGRATION OF MODERN LINGUISTICS WITH SCIENCE, EDUCATION, AND PRACTICE IN THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION: NEW APPROACHES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND CHALLENGES”, DECEMBER 4, 2025 34 In grammar, the number category indicates that the form of the given noun is singular or plural and also languages vary widely in how they express the number in linguistic typology. Furthermore, by adding suffixes, English represents the number analytically, while the number is marked by the consistent affixes in Uzbek as a synthetic language. These two languages, despite this general rule, show several conceptual similarities, along with significant differences according to morphology. English basically uses the suffix -s or -es to create a plural form. This morphological process is considered straightforward; but, English contains several irregular plural forms, for making pluralization partly unforeseeable. If a noun requires regular plural form: usual signal of plurality -/e/s 1 . For example: catcats, bag-bags, church-churches The plural suffix may appear in pronunciation as: /s/ (cats), /z/ (dogs), /ɪz/ (buses). However, some nouns take irregular form and English irregular plurals come from historical processes such as vowel mutation, borrowed forms, and Old English relics. For instance: woman → women , goose → geese, mouse → mice, child → children, fish → fish (zero plural). Learners need to remember these patterns, making the language-learning process more demanding Furthermore, there are some English nouns which are always plural: news, scissors. Some nouns are usually uncountable, but they can take a plural form when their meaning shifts, such as: glass vs glasses, paper vs papers, hair vs hairs. Moreover, in English, certain nouns appear in the plural when used metaphorically or for stylistic effect. Take a look at these examples: waters (poetic), sands (desert imagery), riches (wealth, figurative). Uzbek - an agglutinative language - utilizes a single, consistent plural suffix by adding it to the noun. For example: kitob - kitoblar, daraxt - daraxtlar. In Uzbek language, there is no irregular plural forms,unlike English language. The morphological process simplifies acquisition for learners and it is uniform across all noun types. In Uzbek, plurality is considered flexible and context-dependant. Furthermore, the plural suffix is unnecessary because other elements already express the number. For instance: ikki talaba (not ikkita talabalari). This syntactic rule is absent in English as plural marking on nouns is obligatory when referring to more than one entity. In English, plural forms come in many shapes: most nouns simply take -s or -es, but there are also numerous irregular forms like children or mice. Uzbek, on the other hand, is much more straightforward. It uses one main plural ending, -lar/-lar, 2 and this marker works consistently across almost all nouns. English grammar requires nouns to be marked explicitly for plural every time they refer to more than one item, such as two books or many cars. Uzbek is more flexible. When a number or quantity word is already present, the plural ending is usually unnecessary. For example, speakers naturally say ikki kitob rather than ikki kitoblar. 1 Varga Nataliya Ivanivna.Theoretical Grammar of English. ДВНЗ «Ужгородський національний університет», 2024. p 28 2 Erkaboyeva N. O’zbek tilidan ma’ruzalar to’plami. T.: “Akademnashr”,2014.p 267. INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE “INTEGRATION OF MODERN LINGUISTICS WITH SCIENCE, EDUCATION, AND PRACTICE IN THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION: NEW APPROACHES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND CHALLENGES”, DECEMBER 4, 2025 35 The way each language forms plurals is also shaped by its overall structure. English is an analytical language, meaning it depends heavily on word order and small function words to show grammatical meaning. Uzbek is synthetic, so it relies more on affixes and its rich system of endings to express the same ideas. In English, plural nouns trigger agreement: verbs, pronouns, and demonstratives must match the noun in number, as in these books are.... Uzbek is more relaxed in this regard. Verbs do not normally change their form when the subject is plural, so a sentence like Bolalar keldi is considered fully grammatical. Writers also use plurality to impress readers and its function is to create extraordinary image of the situation and help to visualize the size of given noun. For instance, take “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe. “We had very little water, and it was dangerous country, with many wild animals.” 3 As for examples from Uzbek literature, it is a good idea to look at masterpieces of O‘tkir Hoshimov: “Pushtalarda qip-qizil qalampirlar pishib yotibdi.” 4 These examples demonstrate there is necessity of plural forms in narrative. Early English learners struggle with plural nouns, especially irregular forms. This means they must remember forms like mice or feet. Uzbek learners often transform Uzbek rules into English, producing mistakes like two book or many animal. English speakers learning Uzbek face the opposite issue—they frequently add the plural suffix even when it is not required. For L2 educators, there are some useful tips and if they follow them, they could do better teaching and also class will be engaging for students. These are: • Teach irregular plural forms clearly and at the beginning of English lessons. • Clarify the contexts in Uzbek in which nouns stay singular. • Provide comparative tasks to help students differentiate the two systems. • Use literature-based examples to imrove real-world understanding. To sum up, the typological nature of both languages - analytical and synthetic - can assist to differentiate the pluralization systems, which means that English exhibits complex pluralization rules with many irregulations, while Uzbek has a consistent morphological pattern. Nevertheless, these two languages share common conceptual principles of plurality and through understanding these similarities and differences, language learners can avoid common errors, improving accuracy and fluency. This detailed comparative analysis illustrates the importance of cross-linguistic knowledge, especially for learners working on grammatical concepts. REFERENCES 1. Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. Oxford University Press, 2000. 2. Erkaboyeva N. O'zbek tilidan ma'ruzalar to'plami. “Akademnashr”, 2014. 3. Hoshimov O'. Ikki eshik orasi. “Sharq”, 2012. 4. Nataliya Varga. Theoretical Grammar of English. Uzhhorod National University, 2024. 3 Daniel Defoe.Robinson Crusoe. Oxford University Press 2000 .p7 4 O’tkir Hoshimov. Ikki eshik orasi. T.:”Sharq’’,2012. p54