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Difficulty: MediumNouns and Noun Phrases

Complete the sentence below by providing the correct plural form of the compound noun shown in parentheses.

Answer:During the international security summit, the 【commanders-in-chief】 of all participating nations gathered for a closed-door briefing.

Answer

commanders-in-chief
The correct form is 'commanders-in-chief' because pluralization rules for compound nouns with prepositional phrases dictate that the plural inflection '-s' attaches directly to the primary headword ('commander').

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the principal noun component (headword) of the compound noun 'commander-in-chief'.
The principal noun component is 'commander', while '-in-chief' acts as a modifying prepositional phrase.
In hyphenated compound nouns, pluralization attaches to the main noun headword, not the prepositional modifier.
2
Apply the plural suffix '-s' to the primary headword.
'commander' becomes 'commanders', yielding 'commanders-in-chief'.
Pluralizing the final element ('chiefs') is a common grammatical error because the chief modifier does not carry the plural marker.

Key Concept

Pluralization of Compound Nouns with Prepositional Modifiers
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Topics

Nouns and Noun Phrases

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