The Noun

PLAN:

1. Categorical meaning of the noun.

2. Grammatical categories of noun.

3. The problem of article as the problem of determination of the noun.

4. Noun as a spherical part of speech.

(1) The categorial meaning of the noun is the meaning of substantiveness (substance, thingness). Because of that the noun is the main part of speech and the central nominative lexemic unit of language. As a part of speech noun is also characterized by formal features. This characteristic is caused by formal criterion applied to noun. The system of suffixes typical of nouns is studied by lexicology. The third criterion which we take into consideration while analyzing a noun is a functional (syntactic) one. It is well known that noun usually functions as subject or object, nevertheless in some cases a noun can fulfil attributive, adverbial, and even predicative functions.

The noun is also characterized by some special types of combinability:

· prepositional combinability with another noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb (an entrance to the house, to turn round the corner, red in face, far from its destination);

· casal (possessive) combinability (the speech of the President – the President’s speech);

· combinability of nouns with one another by sheer contact (a cannon ball, film festival, text linguistics).

The lexico-grammatical status of such combinations is quite a debatable one (should we treat them as one separate word or a word-group?). In the history of linguistics this problem has received the half-facetious name «The cannon ball problem». In modern linguistics such word combinations are called “contact noun attributes” (prof. Blokh). Forming a string of several words they are very characteristic of professional language.

The formal features taken together are relevant for the division of nouns into several subclasses (four oppositional pairs):

· on the basis of type of nomination – proper and common nouns;

· on the basis of form of existence – animate and inanimate nouns;

· on the basis of personal quality – human and non-human nouns;

· on the basis of quantitative structure – countable and uncountable nouns.

English nouns are also divided into concrete and abstract.

The phenomenon of subclass selection is intensely analysed as part of current linguistic research work.

(2) The noun discriminates the grammatical categories of gender, number and case.

The category of gender. In English grammar tradition the category of gender is more semantic (meaningful) than grammatical. It is expressed by the obligatory correlation of nouns with personal pronouns of the 3^rd person. This category is strictly oppositional and is formed by two oppositions: the upper opposition (person nouns – non-person nouns) and the lower opposition (the subdivision of person nouns into feminine nouns and masculine nouns). In English the category of gender correlates with sexes, while in Russian, German and French the gender division of nouns is sometimes purely formal (мышь – ж.р. / тюль – м.р.). Nevertheless some grammarians in English speak about the so called neuter gender which correlates with the pronoun it. Without going into the debate we should state that gender in English correlates with animated and unanimated objects.

Alongside of the grammatical gender distinctions, English nouns can show the sex of their references lexically (by means of being combined with certain notional word used as sex indicators or by suffixal derivation), c.f.:

boy-friend – girl-friend; landlord – landlady;

he-bear – she-bear;

master – mistress; actor – actress; lion – lioness, sultan – sultana, etc.

Nowadays the so called gender researches are becoming popular in linguistics. They deal with the deep meaning of the category of gender.

The category of number. It is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form of the noun. The strong member of the opposition is the plural. Its productive formal mark is the suffix -(e)s: dog – dog s, clock – clock s, box – box es.

The other, non-productive ways of expressing the number opposition are vowel interchange (tooth – teeth, foot – feet), the archaic suffix -en (ox – oxen), the correlation of individual singular and plural suffixes in some borrowed nouns (phenomenon – phenomena, formula – formulae). In some cases the form of the plural is homonymous with the singular form (sheep, fish, deer).

The semantic nature of the difference between singular and plural may cause some difficulties of interpretation. In this connection we are to mention pluralia tantum and singularia tantum which respectively mean the nouns used in plural only and in singular only.

The absolute singular is characteristic of the names of abstract notions (courage, love, joy, friendship), the names of the branches of professional activity (chemistry, mathematics, linguistics), the names of mass-materials (water, snow, steel), the names of collective inanimate objects (foliage, fruit, furniture). As for the so called absolute plural it is characteristic of uncountable nouns which denote objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors), the nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning (outskirts, clothes, parings; earnings, contents, politics; police, cattle, poultry), the nouns denoting some diseases and abnormal states of the body and mind (measles, creeps, hysterics).

The absolute plural can be represented (1) in countable nouns having the form of the singular (collective nouns); (2) in uncountable nouns having the form of the plural; (3) in countable nouns having the form of the plural.

(1) The family are at the table (multitude plural);

(2) the sands of the desert, the snows of the Arctic (descriptive uncountable plural);

(3) I lit cigarette after cigarette. There were trees and trees all round us (repetition plural).

The category of case. According to some scholars, prof. Ilyish among them, there are 3 categories of case in modern English:

· common case

· possessive (genitive) case

· vocative case

From practical point of view it’s quite adequate to differentiate between two cases only, i.e. common case and possessive case.

“Case is the immanent morphological category of the noun manifested in the forms of declension and showing the relations of the referent nominated by the noun to the other objects and phenomena” (Blokh).

To form the possessive case in English the particle -’s is used. That’s why sometimes it is called particle case. In the process of tuition it’s very important to show a child the mechanism of formation of the possessive case.

(3) Article is a determining unit of a specific nature which accompanies the noun in communication. The semantic purpose of the article is to specify the nounal referent, to define it in the most general way. C. f.: Will you give me this pen, Willy? (the pen that I am pointing out, not one of your choice) – Will you give me the pen, please? (simply the pen from the desk, you understand which).

A mere semantic observation of the article in English correlates with singular and plural objects.

The definite article expresses the identification or individualization of the referent of the noun. The indefinite article expresses a classifying generalization of the nounal referent. Together with this there is the so called meaningful absence of the article (zero article). The meaningful absence of the article before the countable noun in the singular signifies that the noun is taken in an abstract sense, expressing the most general idea of the object denoted, e.g.: Law (in general) begins with the beginning of human society. The absence of the article before the uncountable noun corresponds to the two kinds of generalization: both relative and absolute, e.g.: John laughed with great bitterness (that sort of bitterness: relative generalization), Coffee (in general: absolute generalization) stimulates the function of the heart. The absence of the article before the countable noun in the plural corresponds to both kinds of generalization, e.g.: Stars, planets and comets (these kinds of objects: relative generalization) are different celestial bodies (not terrestrial bodies: relative generalization).

The recognition of zero article is very debatable. In practical tuition we usually follow the opposition of definite and indefinite articles. This opposition can be well seen in the following scheme:

Article determination

+ _

the (identification) a (an) 0 (non-identification)

+ _ a (an) 0

relative generalization absolute generalization

(classification) (abstraction)

(4) Noun as a spherical part of speech.

In accordance with the theory of sphere the nucleus of the nounal field is constituted by concrete nouns, since they possess all the features peculiar to the noun as a part of speech. That means that concrete nouns have the singular and the plural forms; they can be determined by any article or by no article when used in generalized meaning; in the sentence they can occupy any syntactic position typical of the noun. Besides the concrete nouns the nuclear part of the nounal field includes person nouns which, in addition to the aforementioned features, have the possessive form. The latter is practically not typical of the concrete nouns denoting inanimate objects and is alien to abstract nouns. As for the background units of the field they are represented by abstract nouns and nouns denoting the names of materials.

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