副詞后綴-s幾乎是現(xiàn)代英語所有名詞后綴的復(fù)數(shù)形式，這個后綴是從古英語-as 逐漸地擴(kuò)充到中古英語里面。這里只是簡單介紹了后綴-s來源，實際上，英語單詞很在一部分單詞的來源比較曲折，而且來源于不同的語言，這就像是中國普通話和各地方言一樣，整個歐洲如果看成一個國家的話，就非常像中國的變通與地方音的千差萬別了，當(dāng)然，歐洲大部分語言本為一家，后來不斷的演變，才有了現(xiàn)在的國家密集，語言復(fù)雜。為了讓大家更好的理解，后綴-s的來源，這里給出純英文詞源，供大家參考。

英文詞源：

-s (1)
suffix forming almost all Modern English plural nouns, gradually extended in Middle English from Old English -as, the nominative plural and accusative plural ending of certain "strong" masculine nouns (such as dæg "day," nominative/accusative plural dagas "days"). The commonest Germanic declension, traceable back to the original PIE inflection system, it is also the source of the Dutch -s plurals and (by rhotacism) Scandinavian -r plurals (such as Swedish dagar).

Much more uniform today than originally; Old English also had a numerous category of "weak" nouns that formed their plurals in -an, and other strong nouns that formed plurals with -u. Quirk and Wrenn, in their Old English grammar, estimate that 45 percent of the nouns a student will encounter will be masculine, nearly four-fifths of them with genitive singular -es and nominative/accusative plural in -as. Less than half, but still the largest chunk.

The triumphs of -'s possessives and -s plurals represent common patterns in language: using only a handful of suffixes to do many jobs (such as -ing), and the most common variant squeezing out the competition. To further muddy the waters, it's been extended in slang since 1936 to singulars (such as ducks, sweets, babes) as an affectionate or diminutive suffix.

Old English single-syllable collectives (sheep, folk) as well as weights, measures, and units of time did not use -s. The use of it in these cases began in Middle English, but the older custom is preserved in many traditional dialects (ten pound of butter; more than seven year ago; etc.).

-s (2)
third person singular present indicative suffix of verbs, it represents Old English -es, -as, which began to replace -eð in Northumbrian 10c., and gradually spread south until by Shakespeare's time it had emerged from colloquialism and -eth began to be limited to more dignified speeches.

同綴詞：

1.afternoons
adv.每天下午

2.nights
adv.每夜，在夜間

3.weekends
adv.在每個周末

4.sometimes
adv.有時

5.besides
adv.此外，而且

6.unawares
adv.不知不覺地

7.nowadays
adv.現(xiàn)今，當(dāng)今

8.outdoors
adv.在戶外

9.indoors
adv.在屋內(nèi)

10.upstairs
adv.在樓上，往樓上

11.downstairs
adv.在樓下，往樓下

12.weekdays
adv.在每個周日