In linguistics, the number of nouns is an important grammatical concept. The singular and plural forms are the two basic forms of nouns. In English, the singular form of a noun is usually used to denote one thing, while the plural form is used to denote multiple things. For example, "cat" is the singular, while "cats" is the plural.
However, in some cases, the singular and plural forms of nouns may have different meanings or usages. This usage is often referred to as a "zero article" or "zero number word". In these cases, the "no" after the noun is used to denote a negative meaning rather than a quantity.
For example, "no book" means "no book" instead of "no book". In this case, the noun followed by "no" is in the singular form rather than the plural. This is because "no" denotes a negative meaning rather than a quantity.
Apart from "no", there are some other negative words or nouns followed by phrases that are also in the singular form. For example, nouns followed by "neither" and "none" are also in the singular form because they denote a negative meaning.
It is important to note that when "no" is followed by a countable noun, although it is in the singular form, it does not indicate a specific number. Rather, it denotes complete negation. For example, "no books" means "no books" instead of "none at all". Therefore, the noun after "no" is in the singular form to emphasize the negative meaning rather than to indicate a specific quantity.
In conclusion, when a noun followed by "no" is used to denote a negative meaning, it is in the singular form. This is because "no" itself already expresses a negative meaning, and there is no longer a need to represent quantity by the plural form of nouns. At the same time, there are some other negative words or nouns followed by phrases that are also in the singular form to emphasize the negative meaning.