Editing Declension (section)

===Nouns===
Most nouns in English have distinct ''singular'' and ''[[plural]]'' forms. Nouns and most noun phrases can form a ''[[possessive]]'' construction. Plurality is most commonly shown by the [[affix|ending]] ''-s'' (or ''-es''), whereas possession is always shown by the en[[clitic]] ''-'s'' or, for plural forms ending in ''s'', by just an apostrophe.

Consider, for example, the forms of the noun ''[[girl]]''. Most speakers pronounce all forms other than the singular plain form (''girl'') exactly the same.{{NoteTag|The elided possessive-indicating ''s'' of the plural possessive may be realised as [z] in some speakers' pronunciations, being separated from the plural-indicating ''s'' normally by a central vowel such as [ɨ̞].}}

{|class="wikitable"
|-
 ! 
 ! Singular
 ! Plural
|-
 ! Plain
 | girl
 | girls
|-
 ! Possessive
 | girl's
 | girls'
|}

By contrast, a few irregular nouns (like [[man]]/men) are slightly more complex in their forms. In this example, all four forms are pronounced distinctly.

{|class="wikitable"
|-
 ! 
 ! Singular
 ! Plural
|-
 ! Plain
 | man
 | men
|-
 ! Possessive
 | man's
 | men's
|}

For nouns, in general, gender is not declined in Modern English. There are isolated situations where certain nouns may be modified to reflect gender, though not in a systematic fashion. Loan words from other languages, particularly Latin and the Romance languages, often preserve their gender-specific forms in English, e.g. ''alumnus'' (masculine singular) and ''alumna'' (feminine singular). Similarly, names borrowed from other languages show comparable distinctions: ''Andrew'' and ''Andrea'', ''Paul'' and ''Paula'', etc. Additionally, suffixes such as ''-ess'', ''-ette'', and ''-er'' are sometimes applied to create overtly gendered versions of nouns, with marking for feminine being much more common than marking for masculine. Many nouns can actually function as members of two genders or even all three, and the gender classes of English nouns are usually determined by their agreement with pronouns, rather than marking on the nouns themselves.

There can be other derivations from nouns that are not considered declensions. For example, the proper noun ''[[wikt:Britain|Britain]]'' has the associated descriptive adjective ''[[wikt:British|British]]'' and the [[demonym]] ''[[wikt:Briton|Briton]]''. Though these words are clearly related, and are generally considered [[cognate]]s, they are not specifically treated as forms of the ''same word'', and thus are not declensions.