English plurals end in -s. In Russian, there are more endings to make plurals. They are all summed up in the table:
| Noun type | Ending for plural | Example |
| masculine ending in a hard consonant; feminine ending in -a | -ы | стол - столы |
| any nouns ending in -ь, -й, -я | -и | двeрь - двери |
| masculine and feminine ending in -k, -г, -x, -ч, -щ, -ж, -ш, | -и | нога - ноги |
| neuter ending in -o | -a | окно - окнa |
| neuter ending in -e | -я | мoре - моря |
There are some plurals which have been borrowed from foreign nouns:
| Singular | Plural |
| Latin | |
| agendum | agenda |
| datum | data |
| dictum | dicta |
| erratum | errata |
| memorandum | memoranda |
| medium | media |
| stratum | strata |
| focus | foci |
| formula | formulae |
| fungus | fungi |
| genus | genera |
| axis | axes |
| appendix | appendices |
| series | series |
| species | species |
| Singular | Plural |
| Greek | |
| analysis | analyses |
| basis | bases |
| crisis | crises |
| hypothesis | hypotheses |
| parenthesis | parentheses |
| thesis | theses |
| phenomenon | phenomena |
| criterion | criteria |
| Singular | Plural |
| French | |
| beau | beaux (or beaus) |
| bureau | bureaux |
| monsieur | messieurs |
| madame | mesdames |
Modality plays a great role in the person’s speech, as it expresses speaker’s attitudes to actions of other people. In our diploma paper we analyzed modality as expressions of social power, morphological and semantic features of modal verbs as they express modality.
We have proposed to view the core meanings of the modal verbs as determined by the power structure of the speech act situation where they are used. We have found that the different participants’ expectations about each other’s attitudes combined with the social power structure largely determine the usage, and there by the semantics of modals. Our general semantic approach should, however, be applicable to all languages with modal verbs.
Modal verbs take a special place in grammar, but they are also examined by semantic science. That’s why disagreement appeared between grammar and semantic sciences. Now modal verbs are the subject of grammar, which consider not only the structural characteristics, but also studies semantic loading of modal verbs.
The category of modal verbs include request, order, imperative, command, approval, disapproval, reproach, an opportunity, skill, a duty, a prediction, the assumption and etc.
In our diploma paper we also analyzed semantic features of modal verbs. We have found out that modal verbs are concerned defective as many modal verbs have no form of future time, they have the equivalents among nominal verbs. In this connection, equivalents of modal verbs in our work have involved in the separate semantic analysis.
Drawing conclusion of our work, we can tell, that each modal verb and its equivalents have several values. These values frequently coincide with values of other modal verbs, but have the own special characteristic, each of characteristics proves to be true from examples in colloquial and literary speech.