Question

Fill in the blank with the plural form of the noun in brackets:
My (daughter-in-law) ______________ prepared dinner for me.
a) daughters-in-law
b) daughter-in-laws
c) daughters-in-laws
d) daughter-in-law

Answer 1

Hint: Plural nouns are words that indicate that there is more than one person, animal, place, thing, or idea.

Complete step by step answer:
In the phrase ‘daughter-in-law’, the noun is ‘daughter’, as it refers to a person. Thus, in the given question, the noun 'daughter' should be made plural, not the word 'law' because the sentence refers to more than one daughter (in law).

Let us analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'daughters-in-law', makes the noun ‘daughter’ a plural noun and makes no other change. Therefore, option (a.) is correct.

Option (b.), ‘daughter-in-laws', makes the word ‘law’ a plural word and makes no other change. Therefore, option (c.) is incorrect as the noun ‘daughter’ is still singular.

Option (c.), ‘daughters-in-laws', makes the word ‘law’ a plural word and the noun ‘daughter’ a plural noun. Therefore, option (d.) is incorrect as there is to be no change in the word ‘law’.

Option (d.), ‘daughter-in-law', makes no change in the set of words. Therefore, option (c.) is incorrect as the noun ‘daughter’ is still singular.

Hence, option (a) is correct.

Note: In the noun ‘daughter-in-law’, the subject is ‘daughter’, and not ‘law’. This is why ‘law’ is not made plural in order to make ‘daughter-in-law’ plural.