Lexicalization of the pural of nouns

Substantivation of adjectives

Substantivation (or substantivization) is the process in which adjectives (or participles) acquire the paradigm and syntactic functions of nouns. One should distinguish two main types of substantivation – complete (or whole) and partial.

Completely (or wholly) substantivized adjectives have the full paradigm of a noun, i.e. the singular and the plural forms, the genitive case and they may be associated with various determiners (definite, indefinite and zero articles, demonstrative and possessive pronouns), e.g. an official, the official, officials, the officials, officials, officials’, this official, our officials.

Partially substantivized adjectives (PSA) do not acquire the full paradigm of a noun, i.e. they acquire only some of the characteristics of the nouns; they are used with the definite article. PSA fall into several structural-semantic groups:

a) PSA denoting a group or a class of people; used mostly in plural, e.g. reds, greens, blues, buffs, etc.

b) PSA denoting abstract notions, e.g. the good, the bad, the evil, the beautiful, the extravagant, the ordinary, the singular, the plural, etc. Such PSA are singular in meaning and form and take a singular verb, e.g. The good in him overweighs the bad. My mother never lost her taste for the extravagant. She didn’t regard Eliza's behaviour as particularly out of the ordinary.

c) PSA denoting inanimite things and used mostly in plural, e.g. sweets, ancients, eatables, greens, valuables, etc.

d) PSA denoting nationalities and used in plural, e.g. the English, the French, the Chinese, the Irish, the Dutch, etc. E.g. The English are great lovers of tea.

e) PSA denoting languages, e.g. English, German, Italian, French, Ukrainian, etc. Such f) PSA are singular in form and meaning, e.g. In number of speakers English nowadays is second only to Chinese. English is the official language of Australia and New Zealand.

There are cases when the grammatical form of the plural of nouns becomes isolated from the paradigm and acquires a new lexical meaning. This leads to the appearance of new lexical units, e.g.:

a colour - colours (=hues):: colours (=regimental flags);

a force forces (=powers):: forces (=an army);

a custom - customs (=habits):: customs (=taxes on imported goods);

a draught- draughts (=currents of air):: draughts (=a game);

a glass - glasses (=vessels for drinking):: glasses (=spectacles);

a manner - manners (=ways):: manners (=behaviour);

a moral - morals (=lessons of a story):: morals (=standards of behaviour);

a quarter- quarters (=forth parts):: quarters (=lodgings);

a line - lines (a long, narrow mark):: lines (= poetry) etc.

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