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Whereas the regular pluralization in English involves adding -s or -es, English words derived from a Latin/Greek etymon where the Latin/Greek would pluralize from -on (Greek) or -um (Latin) to -a do not always do so. Usage of -a instead of -s differs between words: sometimes the two are interchangeable (e.g. memorandums/memoranda, polyhedrons/polyhedra), sometimes one is far more common than the other (e.g. neurons over neura, automata over automatons), and sometimes one is completely absent from usage (e.g. bacteria over bacteriums, dendrons over dendra)
The word data is etymologically the plural of datum but is commonly regarded as an uncountable noun.
I love to sing-a / about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a, / I love to sing-a / about a sky of blue-a, or a tea for two-a.
1980s, “Wanna”, in Herb Owen (music), Kids Sing Praise, performed by Kids Sing Praise:
I wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna really wanna be just like the Lord So every day Im gonna gonna read the Book and rest upon-a God's own holy Word Of good in me there's none-a none-a that's okay because I'm gonna trust upon the work that's done-a on the Cross and Jesus is the one-a one-a God the Father's Son-a Son-a and my sin He cures!
2014, Don Pendleton, California Hit, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
"I'm-a tell-a you why you better be. I named you in my will, Franco."
The suffix -a is usually described as an article. However, its usage is not equivalent to that of English the or a. In Basque, every nominal phrase must carry a determiner, which usually takes the final position in the phrase. Although many others exist, -a is the default determiner which introduces no additional meaning. Compare the following sentences. In the first two, the determiners (-a and hau(“this”)) apply to the noun phrase etxe handi(“big house”); while in the last two they apply separately to etxe(“house”) and handi(“big”):
Etxe handia da. ― It is a big house.
Etxe handi hau da. ― It is this big house.
Etxea handia da. ― The house is big.
Etxe hau handia da. ― This house is big.
In Standard Basque, nouns ending in -a in their indefinite form (known in Basque as a itsatsia(literally “attached a”)) don't change when the article is added:
From the *sᴕ̈ third-person personal pronoun of the ancestor language after it was appended to the word of possession. According to some linguists this attachment happened in the Proto-Uralic era, while others think it happened much later when the Hungarian language became independent.
(with a singular possessor) …-'s, of … (third-person singular, single possession)
Anna háza(“Anna’s house”), a felkelő nap háza(“the house of the rising sun”)Anna élete(“Anna’s life”), a város élete(“the life of the city”)a király palotája(“the king’s palace”)a ház kapuja(“the gate of the house”)Anna kertje(“Anna’s garden”), a tulipán kertje(“the garden of the tulip”)
(with a plural possessor) …-s’, of …-s(third-person plural, single possession)
a szüleim háza(“my parents’ house”), a trópusi növények háza(“ house of tropical plants”, literally “the tropical plants’ house”)a szüleim élete(“my parents’ lives”, literally “my parents’ life”), a könyvek élete(“ lives of books”, literally “the books’ life”)az uralkodók palotája(“the rulers’ palace”)a szüleim kertje(“my parents’ garden”), Az elágazó ösvények kertje(“The Garden of Forking Paths”)
(with instantaneous time expressions) … ago(referring to a preceding point in time considered as an instant)
Egy évszázada / két éve / egy órája / sok/hosszú ideje ment el. ― S/he left one century / two years / one hour / a long time ago.
Synonym:-val/-velezelőtt, e.g. egy évszázaddal, két évvel ezelőtt
(with durative time expressions)for … (referring to some duration that precedes the point of time in question)
Egy évszázada / két éve / egy órája / sok/hosszú ideje várunk rád. ― We have been waiting for you for a century / two years / an hour / a long time.
jó (jav-)(“the greater/better part”) → a java még hátravan(“the best/bulk is yet to come”, literally “its best/bulk is…”)
legnagyobbik(“the biggest one”) → a bikák legnagyobbika(“the biggest of the bulls”, synonymous with a legnagyobb bika)
(personal suffix)
Third-person singular personal suffix in back-vowel verbs. Today it can be found in the third-person singular definite forms (indicative past and imperative conjugations) as part of the suffix -ja/-je, -ta/-te.
tud → tudja(“he/she should know it (subjunctive mood)”)
kér(“to request, ask for sth”) → kérte(“he/she requested it”)
kér → kérje(“he/she should request it (subjunctive mood)”)
Third-person singular personal suffix in back-vowel conjugated infinitives and in the declined and postposition forms of the third-person personal pronoun ő(“he/she/it”).
tanulni(“to study”) → tanulnia kell(“he/she must study”, literally “it is necessary for him/her to study”)
kérni(“to request, ask for”) → kérnie kell(“he/she must request ”, literally “it is necessary for him/her to request”)
-a is added to back-vowel words ending in a consonant
-e is added to front-vowel words ending in a consonant
-ja is added to back-vowel words ending in a consonant or a vowel. Final -a changes to -á-; final -o changes to -ó-.
-je is added to front-vowel words ending in a consonant or a vowel. Final -e changes to -é-; final -ö changes to -ő-.
This suffix (in all forms) is normally used for the third-person singular possessive (single possession) but, after an explicit plural possessor, it also expresses the third-person plural possessive (single possession), e.g. “the children’s ball” (a gyerekek labdája). If the possessor is implicit (not named, only marked by a suffix), the plural possessive suffix must be used, e.g. “their ball” (a labdájuk, see -juk and its variants).
First attested in 1055. It can be traced back to Proto-Uralic *-i̮ which with the word-final vowel created the diphthong -ai̮/-ei̮. This had simplified to -á/-é, finally in the Old Hungarian era it had shortened to -a/-e. It was a productive suffix at that time, the back-vowel variant was used even in front-vowel words such as the Old Hungarian female given names Fehéra and Szépa, derived from fehér(“light in color”) and szép(“beautiful”), respectively.
Suffix
-a
(diminutive suffix) The back-vowel variant of the -a/-e diminutive suffix pair. In the past it could be found in common nouns, as well, but today it is used mostly in given names.
cic(“the sound for calling a cat”) → cica(“kitten”)
(personal suffix,archaic)Used to form the third-person singular indicative past indefinite, for back-vowel verbs. The front-vowel version is -e. The suffix currently used in this place is -t, -tt, or -ott. For the full paradigm, see the usage template.
Etymology 4
Along with its front-vowel counterpart -e, from the diphthongs -ai̮/-ei̮, developing to -á/-é, then shortened to this form by the end of the early Old Hungarian period. After the participle suffix became fixed as -ó/-ő, the remaining words suffixed with -a/-e underwent conversion; some became adjectives, others, nouns.
Suffix
-a
(obsolete participle suffix)Synonym of -ó(present-participle suffix)From a synchronic perspective, it can be viewed as a nominal-forming suffix, preserved in some adjectives and nouns (see below). No longer productive. Its front-vowel version is -e.
One may elide the final a of the adjectives, but with the condition not to produce accumulation from the consonants. One advise to use the elision mainly with the derivatived adjectives and particularly when they finish with -al-(a).
From Proto-Italic*-ā, from Proto-Indo-European*-éh₂, from Proto-Indo-European*-h₂(suffix originally used to form collective nouns, extended in Late PIE to also be a marker of feminine gender). For the use to form masculine agent nouns from verb roots, compare Latin poeta from Ancient Greek ποιητής(poiētḗs).
1. Certain masculine nouns ending in -a, especially those ending in -cola and -gena, sometimes have a short genitive plural form ending in -um instead of -ārum.
2. Feminine nouns such as fīlia(“daughter”) that have a second-declension masculine counterpart that takes the ending -īs in the dative and ablative plural (fīlius(“son”), with the dative and ablative plural fīliīs) sometimes take the ending -ābus instead of -īs in the dative and ablative plural to avoid ambiguity. Forms in -ābus are attested earliest for the nouns fīlia and dea(“goddess”), and later on for others such as līberta(“freedwoman”), equa(“mare”) and anima.
Synonyms
(suffixed to the roots of verbs, forms masculine agent nouns):-ō¹
Katarzyna Izabela Wojtylak (2017) A grammar of Murui (Bue): a Witotoan language of Northwest Amazonia., Townsville: James Cook University press (PhD thesis), page 81
Though it was common in Proto-Germanic and Proto-West Germanic, in Old English this ending is restricted to only a few adverbs, among them sōna(“immediately”) and ġeāra(“long ago”). The competing suffix -e is much more common, along with -līċe.
Liljegren, Henrik, Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7), Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN
Liljegren, Henrik, Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7), Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN
Liljegren, Henrik, Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7), Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN
Liljegren, Henrik, Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7), Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN
Masculine non-nominative and non-singular agreement suffix
References
Liljegren, Henrik, Haider, Naseem (2011) Palula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7), Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives, →ISBN
Ei você aí, não coma carne. ― Hey you there, don’t eat meat.
Usage notes
The third-person imperative is not used with third person pronouns but rather with você, which is a second-person pronoun but always takes third-person conjugation.
The suffix is also used with feminine adjectives in the nominative and accusative cases to make the articulated definite form, often for emphasis, and it is used before the noun it modifies:
Inherited from Latin-eam, Latin-am, and Latin-iam the first-person singular present active subjunctive endings of second, third, and fourth conjugation verbs, respectively; and from Latin-eat, Latin-at, and Latin-iat, the third-person singular present active subjunctive ending of second, third, and fourth conjugation verbs, respectively.
Suffix
-a (non-lemma form of verb-forming suffix)
forms the first and third-person singular (also used with usted) singular present subjunctive mood of -er and -ir verbs, also used for the imperative mood of usted
comer(“to eat”) + -a → aunque yo coma(“even if I ate”)
The language noun sense originally comes from the definite adjective + tunga(“tongue; language”). Thus svenska(“Swedish”) was originally svenska tungan (the Swedish tongue)
Suffix
-a
(on a positive adjective)Weak (definite) singular suffix, historically feminine
Transform an adjective describing a people speaking a language into the noun for that language.
engelsk(“English”) + -a → engelska(“the English language”)
Usage notes
On adjectives: Traditionally, if the noun is in the definite singular form it should not refer to a male human if it uses the suffix -a. If it refers to such a person, the suffix should instead be -e, but one should note that this rule is not universally adhered to – in particular dialects of northern Sweden do not recognize the -e suffix at all, but use -a in all instances.
Etymology 3
Suffix
-a
Definite plural suffix for neuter nouns of the fourth declension with regular plurals in -n, e.g. äpplen(“apples”) + -a → äpplena(“the apples”); see also -na.
Usage notes
In informal/dialectal usage, -a may be used instead of -en to form the definite plural of the irregular fourth-declension nouns öron(“ears”), ögon(“eyes”).
A morpheme used to mark the genitivesingular of a word (such as a noun, adjective or pronoun). It is also the most common morpheme used in creating innumerable compound words, some of which can be very long
Marks imperfective aspect in both the recent and distant past tenses.
Usage notes
This suffix can cause syllable reduction. The suffix takes the form -ka when the preceding syllable is reducible and has an onset of k, -ya when the preceding syllable ends in i, and -a in other contexts.
When marking the past imperfective, this suffix never occurs alone but is always accompanied by other suffixes bearing tense/aspect or at least number information. Conversely, when marking the nonpast tense, it occurs alone without other tense/aspect markers, though it can form a plural -aato.