Content
Introduction
Chapter I Morphological features of nouns
1.1 Classification of nouns in English
1.2 Morphological characteristics of Nouns
1.3 Morphological composition of Nouns
Chapter II Comparison of Nouns inEnglish and Russian languages
2.1 The category of number of Nouns in English and inRussian languages
2.2 The category of case of Nouns in English and inRussian language
2.3 The functions of Nouns in English and in Russianlanguages
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
Introduction
Topicality
Language is a social phenomenon andevery language has its own grammar. For many centuries such famous scholars asB. Illyish, M. Y. Blokh, O. Jesperson and many others had investigated theproblem of parts of speech, that causes great controversies both in generallinguistic theory and in the analysis of separate languages. And the mainquestion that had interested them was noun as a part of speech.
The word«noun» comes from the Latin nomen meaning "name."Word classes like nouns were first described by Sanskrit grammarian Panini andancient Greeks like Dionysios Thrax, and defined in terms oftheir morphological properties. For example, in Ancient Greek, nouns can beinflected for grammaticalcase, such as dative or accusative. Verbs, on the other hand,can be inflected for tenses, such as past, present or future, while nounscannot. [14, 31]
In traditionalschool grammars, one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are alland only those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event,substance, quality, or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. It has beencriticized by contemporary linguists as being quite uninformative. Part of theproblem is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns(«thing,» «phenomenon,» «event») to define whatnouns are. The existence of such general nouns shows us that nouns areorganized in taxonomichierarchies.[10,67]
In theprevailing Modern English terminology the terms «noun» and «substantive»are used as synonyms. According to an earlier view, the term «noun»was understood to cover all nominal parts of speech, including substantives,adjectives, pronouns, and numerals, thus corresponding to the Russian term имя.
According to the existence of differencesand similarities in English and in Russian we had revealed in our course paperthe morphological features of nouns, it’s classification and had done thecomparison between English and Russian languages, which are important forModern English.
The theme of our course paper is «Comparisonof nouns in English and Russian languages».
The aim of investigation is to give moreunderstandable and interesting information about the nouns in English andRussian languages and to find out similarities and differences between them.
Object: the category of case and numberof nouns in English and Russian
Subject: the grammar of English andRussian languages
The objectives of investigation arefollows:
1. To gather as much materials out ofdifferent sources (scientific books, curriculum guidelines, teachers' magazines,etc.) as it is required.
2. Tostudy and analyze the work of different linguists;
3. To reveal the importance of the nouns inEnglish grammar.
4. To investigate similarities anddifferences in English and Russian languages.
5. Using more examples to compare nouns inEnglish and Russian languages.
Hypothesis: we suppose that nouns areimportant and if we want to achieve the proficiency we should take into accountthat noun have their own morphological andsemantically features. Teachers will use them in their teaching process.
Practical value: by comparing the nouns in English and Russian languageswe want to give more examples which show similarities and differences of nounsin English and Russian languages.
Theoretical value: the final outcome ofour investigation can be developed in scientific and diploma work. And they canbe used as a source of preparing lectures for Theoretical grammar.
Methods of investigation:
1. contrastive method
2. descriptivemethod
3. analyticalmethod
The scientificnovelty is: we had found out differences and similarities in case system andgrammatical category of number of nouns in English and Russian languages.English distinguishes two numbers: singular and plural as Russian. Case systemof Russian language is more developed than in English.
The bases of our work are resourcecenter and libraries.
The structure of our course paper: Introduction,Topicality, the theoretical part, the practical part, Conclusion, Bibliographyand Appendix.
The theoreticalpart includes:
Classification of nouns inEnglish
Morphologicalcharacteristics of Nouns
Morphologicalcomposition of Nouns
The practicalpart includes:
The categoryof number of Nouns in English and in Russian languages
The categoryof case of Nouns in English and in Russian languages
The functionsof Nouns in English and in Russian languages
Chapter I Morphological features of nouns
1.1 Classification of nouns inEnglish
Proper nouns and common nouns
Proper nouns (also called proper names)are the names of unique entities. For example, «Janet»,«Jupiter» and «Germany» are proper nouns. Proper nouns areusually capitalizedin English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, and this is oneeasy way to recognize them. However, in German nouns of all types arecapitalized. The convention of capitalizing all nouns was previously used inEnglish, but has long fallen into disuse.
All other nouns are called common nouns.For example, «girl», «planet», and «country» arecommon nouns.
Sometimes the same word can function asboth a common noun and a proper noun, where one such entity is special. Forexample: «There can be many gods, but there is only one God.»This is somewhat magnified in Hebrewwhere EL means god (as in a god), God (as in the God), and El (the name of aparticular Canaanitegod).
The common meaning of the word or wordsconstituting a proper noun may be unrelated to the object to which the propernoun refers. For example, someone might be named «Tiger Smith»despite being neither a tiger nor a smith.For this reason, proper nouns are usually not translated between languages,although they may be transliterated. For example, the Germansurname Knödel becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English (not the literalDumpling). However, the translation of place names and the names of monarchs, popes, andnon-contemporary authors is common and sometimes universal. For instance, the Portugueseword Lisboa becomes Lisbon in English;the English London becomes Londres in French; and the Greek Aristotelēsbecomes Aristotlein English.Countable nounsand uncountable nouns
Countable nouns(or count nouns) are common nouns that can take a plural, can combine withnumerals or quantifiers (e.g. «one», «two»,«several», «every», «most»), and can take anindefinite article («a» or «an»). Examples of countablenouns are «chair», «nose», and «occasion». Uncountablenouns (or mass nouns) differ from countable nouns in precisely that respect:they can't take plural or combine with number words or quantifiers. Examplesfrom English include «laughter», «cutlery»,«helium», and «furniture». For example, it is not possibleto refer to «a furniture» or «three furnitures». This istrue, even though the furniture referred to could, in principle, be counted.Thus the distinction between mass and count nouns shouldn't be made in terms ofwhat sorts of things the nouns refer to, but rather in terms of how the nouns presentthese entities. The separate page for mass noun contains further explanation ofthis point. Some words function in the singular as a count noun and, without achange in the spelling, as a mass noun in the plural: she caught a fish, wecaught fish; he shot a deer, they shot some deer; the craft was dilapidated,the pier was chockablock with craft.Collective Nouns
Collective nouns are nouns that refer togroups consisting of more than one individual or entity, even when they areinflected for the singular. Examples include «committee,»«herd» and «school» (of herring). These nouns have slightlydifferent grammatical properties than other nouns. For example, the noun phrasesthat they head can serve of the subject of a collective predicate, even whenthey are inflected for the singular. A collective predicate is a predicate thatnormally can't take a singular subject. An example of the latter is«surround the house.»
Good: The boys surrounded the house.
Bad: *The boy surrounded the house.
Good: The committee surrounded thehouse. [11.p.62]Concrete nounsand abstract nouns
Concrete nouns refer to definiteobjects—objects in which you use at least one of your senses.For instance, «chair», «apple», or «Janet».Abstract nouns on the other hand refer to ideas or concepts, such as«justice» or «hate». While this distinction is sometimesuseful, the boundary between the two of them is not always clear. In English,many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes("-ness", "-ity", "-tion") to adjectives orverbs. Examples are «happiness», «circulation» and«serenity».
1.2 Morphologicalcharacteristics of the Nouns
The noun hasthe following morphological characteristics:
1. Nounsthat can be counted have two numbers: singular and plural (e.g. singular: agirl, plural: girls).
2. Nounsdenoting living being (and some nouns denoting lifeless things) have two caseforms: the common case and the genitive case.
It is doubtfulwhether grammatical category of gender exists in Modern English for it is hardlyever expressed by means of grammatical forms.
There ispractically only one gender-forming suffix in Modern English, the suffix -es,expressing feminine gender. It is not widely used.
heir- heir-ess
poet- poet-ess
actor-actor-ess
waiter-waitr-ess
host- host-ess
lion- lion-ess
tiger-tigr-ess
Gender, i.e.the distinction of nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter, may be expressedlexically by means of different words or word-compounds:
father- motherman- woman
boy- girl gentleman-lady
husband- wife cock-sparrow-hen-sparrow
boy-friend- girl-friend man-servant-maid-servant
«She isheiress to the throne.» [4, p.110]
«Is therea parson, much bemused in beer,
A maudlinpoetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk,foredoomed his father’s soul to cross,
Who pen’s astanza, when he should engross?» [2, p.385]
«A livingcat is better than a dead lioness». [2, p.230]
«SaintGeorge, that swinged the dragon, and e’er since
Sits on hishorse back at mine hostess’ door.» [5, p.447]
In linguistics, grammatical number is amorphological category characterized by the expression of quantity throughinflection or agreement. As an example, consider the English sentences below:
That apple on the table is fresh.
Those two apples on the table are fresh.
The number of apples is marked on thenoun — «apple», singular number (one item) vs. «apples»,plural number (more than one item) —, on the demonstrative,«that/those», and on the verb, «is/are». Note that, especiallyin the second sentence, this information can be considered redundant,since quantity is already indicated by the numeral «two».
A language has grammatical number whenits nouns are subdivided into morphological classes according to the quantitythey express, such that:
Every noun belongsto a single number class. (Number partitions nouns into disjoint classes.)
Noun modifiers (such as adjectives) and verbs havedifferent forms for each number class, and must be inflected to match thenumber of the nouns they refer to. (Number is an agreementcategory.)
This is the case in English: every nounis either singular or plural (a few, such as «fish», can be either,according to context), and at least some modifiers of nouns — namely the demonstratives,the personal pronouns, the articles, and verbs — areinflected to agree with the number of the nouns they refer to: «thiscar» and «these cars» are correct, while «this cars»or «these car» are ungrammatical.
Not all languages have number as agrammatical category. In those that do not, quantity must be expressed directly,with numerals, or indirectly, through optional quantifiers.However, many of these languages compensate for the lack of grammatical numberwith an extensive system of measure words.[23]
The word «number» is also usedin linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspectsthat indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactiveaspect, the iterative aspect, etc.
1.3Morphological composition of nouns
According totheir morphological composition we distinguish simple, derivative and compoundnouns.
1. Simplenouns are nouns which have neither prefixes nor suffixes. They are indecomposable:chair, table, room, map, fish, work.
2. Derivative nouns are nouns which have derivativeelements (prefixes or suffixes or both): reader, sailor, blackness, childhood,misconduct, inexperience.
Productivenoun-forming suffixes are:
-er: reader,teacher, worker
-ist:communist, telegraphist, dramatist
-ess: heiress,hostess, actress
-ness:careless, madness, blackness
-ism:socialism, nationalism, imperialism
«Reader,though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind…»
«Isuppose, thought I, judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage,Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never livedamongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them.»
«Is therea place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?»
"… justas I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, ..." [1,pp.94-109]
Unproductivesuffixes are:
-hood:childhood, manhood
-dom: freedom
-ship:friendship, relationship
-ment:development
-ance:importance
-ence:dependence
-ty: cruelty
-ity: generosity
«She hadfinished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of heraccomplishments.»
«She madereasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profoundaffection, and by her simplicity, gay prattle, efforts to please, inspired me,in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content ineach other’s society.» [1, pp.109-110]
«Thelittle Princess had never seen a firework in her life, so the King had givenorders that the Royal Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of hermarriage.» [7, p.10]
3. Compoundnouns are nouns built from two or more stems. Compound nouns often have onestress. The meaning of a compound often differs from the meaning of itselements.
The main typesof compound nouns are as follows:
(a) noun-stem+noun-stem: appletree, snowball;
(b) adjective-stem+noun-stem: blackbird, bluebell;
(c) verb-stem+noun-stem: pickpocket; the stem of a gerund or of a participle may be the firstcomponent of a compound noun: dining-room, reading-hall, dancing-girl.
«Ifollowed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by aladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall.» [1, p.105]
«The lastitem on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to be let off exactlyat midnight.» [7, p.15]
Conclusion
In theoreticalpart of our course work we investigated two main questions: classification ofnouns in English and morphological characteristics of nouns.
We had foundthat nouns are classified into: (A) proper nouns; (B) common nouns.There are different groupsof common nouns: class nouns, collective nouns, nouns of material and abstractnouns. Proper nouns are individual names given to separate persons or things.As regards their meaning proper nouns may be personal names (Mary, Peter,Shakespeare), geographical names (Moscow, London, the Caucasus), the names ofthe month and days of week (February, Monday), etc. Common nouns are names thatcan be applied to any individual of a class of persons or things (e. g. man,dog, book), collections of similar individuals or things regarded as a singleunit (e. g. peasantry, family), materials (e. g. snow, iron, cotton) orabstract notions (e. g. kindness, development).
According totheir morphological composition nouns may be: simple, derivative and compound.The noun has such morphological characteristics as: number (singular andplural), case (the common case and the genitive case). The category of gender is expressedin English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns ofthe third person. These serve as specific gender classifiers of nouns, being potentially reflectedon each entry of the noun in speech.
Chapter II Comparison of Nouns inEnglish and Russian languages
2.1 Thecategory of number of Nouns in English and in Russian languages
The noun inModern English has only two grammatical categories, number and case. The existenceof case appears to be doubtful and has to be carefully analysed.
The ModernEnglish noun certainly has not got the category of grammatical gender, which isto be found, for example, in Russian, French, German and Latin. Not a singlenoun in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to itsdenoting a male or a female being. Thus, the words husband and wife do not showany difference in their forms due to the peculiarities of their lexicalmeanings. [10,p. 69]
NUMBER
Modern Englishlike most other languages distinguishes two numbers: singular and plural. Themeaning of singular and plural seems to be self-explanatory, that is theopposition: one —more thanone. With all this, expression of number in different classes of English nounspresents certain difficultiesfor a foreigner to master.
As alreadymentioned, plural and singular nouns stand in contrast as diametricallyopposite. Instances are not few, however, when their opposition comes to beneutralised. And this is to say that there are cases when the numericdifferentiation appears to be of no importance at all. Here belong manycollective abstract and material nouns. If, for instance, we look at themeaning of collective nouns, we cannot fail to see that they denote at the sametime a plurality and a unit. They may be said to be doubly countable and thusfrom a logical point of view form the exact contrast to mass nouns: they are,in fact, at the same time singular and plural, while mass words are logicallyneither. The double-sidedness of collective nouns weakens the opposition andleads to the development of either Pluralia tantum, as in: weeds (in a garden),ashes, embers, etc., or Singularia tantum, as in: wildfowl, clergy, foliage,etc. [1, p.87]
In some cases usage fluctuates, and the twoforms are interchangeable, e. g. brain or brains: he has no brains or littlebrains; victuals are more common than victual; oats than oat; similarly: Hiswages were high. How much wages does he get? That is a fair wage. They couldnot take too much pain.
The dualnature of collective nouns is shown linguistically in various ways: by thenumber of the verb or by the pronoun referring to it, as for instance, myfamily are early risers, they are already here… My family is not large.
It isimportant to observe that the choice between singular and plural depends on themeaning attached to the noun. Compare also: We have much fruit this year and therich fruits of the heroic labour of Soviet people are visible from all thecorners of the earth.
Similarly: Thefootball team is playing very well. Cf. The football team are having bath andare coming back here for tea.
A word shouldbe said about stylistic transpositions of singular nouns in cases like thefollowing: trees in leaf, to have a keen eye, blue of eye, strong of muscle.Patterns of this kind will exemplify synecdoche — the simplest case of metonymy ingrammar («pars pro toto»).
The Germanswon the victories. By God they were soldiers. The Old Hun was a soldier. Butthey were cooked too. They were all cooked… The Hun would come down throughthe Trentino, and cut the railway at the Vicenza and then where would theItalians be? [6, p.65]
The chap wasso big now that he was there nearly all his time, like some immovable,sardonic, humorous eye nothing to decline of men and things. [9, p.84]
Cf. Держи вухо востро. Держи ухо остро. У него наметанный глаз. Ислышно было до рассвета, как ликовал француз. [10, p.106]
Other«universals» in expressing plurality will be found in what may becalled «augmentative» plurals, i. e. when the plural forms ofmaterial nouns are used to denote large amounts of substance, or a high degreeof something. This is often the case when we see the matter as it exists innature. Such plural forms are often used for stylistic purposes in literaryprose and poetry, e. g.:the blue watersof the Mediterranean, the sands of the Sahara Desert, the snows of Kilimanjaro.
Similarly in Russian: синие воды Средиземного моря, пески Сахары, снега Арктики.
Еще в поляхбелеет снег,
А воды уж веснойшумят. [12, p.96]
Люблю ее степейалмазные снега. [13, p.159]
Ukrainian: Сині води Середземного моря, піски Сахари, сніги Арктики.
Attention mustalso be drawn to the emotive use of plural forms of abstract verbal nouns inpictorial language:
...it was athousand pities he had run off with that foreign girl — a governess too! [3, p.69]
The look onher face, such as he had never seen there before, such as she had always hiddenfrom him was full of secret resentments, and longings, and fears.
[5, p.75]
The peculiarlook came into Bosinney's face which marked all his enthusiasms.
[3, p.67]
Her face waswhite and strained but her eyes were steady and sweet and full of pity andunbelief. There was a luminous serenity in them and the innocence in the softbrown depths struck him like a blow in the face, clearing some of the alcoholout of his brain, halting his mad, careering words in mod-flight. [5, p.91]
He stood for amoment looking down at the plain, heart-shaped face with its long window's peakand serious dark eyes. Such an unwordly face, a face with no defenses againstlife. [5, p.96]
Oh! Wilfridhas emotions, hates, pities, wants; at least, sometimes; when he does, hisstuff is jolly good. Otherwise, he just makes a song about nothing — like the rest. [3, p.86]
Plural formsof abstract nouns used for stylistic purposes may be traced in language afterlanguage:
Russian: Повсюду страсти роковые
И от судеб защитынет.[11, p.326]
Отрады. Знаю ясладких четыре отрады. [9, p.267]
It should be noted, in passing, that the plural form issometimes used not only for emphasis in pictorial language but to intensify theaspective meaning of the verb, the iterative character of the action, inparticular, e. g.:
Oh, this wasjust the kind of trouble she had feared would come upon them. All the work ofthis last year would go for nothing. All her struggles and fears and labours inrain and cold had been wasted. [5, p.102]
Relentless andstealthy, the butler pursued his labours taking things from the variouscompartments of the sideboard. [3, p.81]
The small moonhad soon dropped down, and May night had failed soft and warm, enwrapping withits grape-bloom colour and its scents the billion caprices, intrigues,passions, longings, and regrets of men and women. [3, p.34]
The emotiveuse of proper nouns in plural is also an effective means of expressiveconnotation, e. g.:
Fleur, leaningout of her window, heard the hall clock's muffled chime of twelve, the tinysplash of a fish, the sudden shaking of an aspen's leaves in the puffs ofbreeze that rose along the river, the distant rumble of a night train, and timeand again the sounds which none can put a name to in the darkness, soft obscureexpressions of uncatalogued emotions from man and beast, bird and machine, or,may be, from departed Forsytes, Darties, Cardigans, taking night strolls backinto a world which had once suited their embodied spirits. [3, p.168]
Expressiveconnotation is particularly strong in the metaphoric use of the plural of nounsdenoting things to be considered unique, e. g.: Ahead of them was a tunnel offire where buildings were blazing on either side of the short, narrow streetthat led down to the railroad tracks. They plunged into it. A glare brighterthan a dozen suns dazzled their eyes, scorching heat seared their skins and theroaring, crackling and crashing beat upon ears in painful waves. [5, p.92]
Very often theplural form, besides its specific meaning may also retain the exact meaning ofthe singular, which results in homonymy.
1) custom = habit, customs = 1) plural of habit
2) duties
2) colour = tint, colours = 1) plural of tint
2) flag
3) effect = result, effects = 1) results
2) goods and chattels
4) manner = mode or way, manners = 1) modes, ways
2) behaviour
5) number = a total amount of units, numbers = 1) in counting
2) poetry
6) pain = suffering, pains = 1) plural of suffering
2) effort
7) premise = a statement or proposition, premises = 1) propositions
2) surroundingto a house
8) quarter = a fourth part, quarters = 1) fourth parts
2) lodgings
There are alsodouble plurals used with some difference of meanings:
1) brother 1) brothers (sons of one mother)
2) brethren (members of onecommunity)
2) genius 1) geniuses (men of genius)
2) genii (spirits)
3) cloth 1) cloths (kinds of cloth)
2) clothes (articles ofdress)
Cf. Russian:
зуб — 1) зубы (во рту), 2) зубья (пилы)
муж — 1) мужья, 2) мужи («ученые мужи»)
тон — 1)тона(оттенки), 2) тоны (звуки)
лист — 1) листья (дерева), 2) листы (бумаги, железа)[24]
Mention should be made in thisconnection of nouns which have two parallel variants in the plural exactlyalike in function but different in their stylistic sphere of application, e.g.:
Cow — cows and kine (arch., now chieflypoetic)
Foe — foes and fone (arch.)
Shoe — shoes and shoen (arch.)
Unproductivearchaic elements are sometimes used to create the atmosphere of elevatedspeech. This may also be traced in other languages. Compare the Russian:
сын — 1) сыновья,сыновей;
2) сыны, сынов (e. g.: сыны отечества).
For all thedetails concerning the grammatical organisation of nouns and their patterningin different kind of structures students are referred to the text-books onEnglish grammar. Two things should be noted here.
It isimportant to observe that in certain contexts nouns can weaken their meaning of«substance» and approach adjectives thus making the idea of qualitiesof the given substance predominant in the speaker's mind. Nouns functioning in this position aregenerally modified by adverbials of degree, e. g.:
«You werealways more of a realist than Jon; and never so innocent». [3, 57]
«We'reall fond of you», hesaid, «If you'd only» —he was going to say, «behave yourself», but changed it to — «if you'd only be more of a wife tohim». [3,98]
«Why hadhe ever been fool enough to see her again». [3, 198]
«Not muchof an animal is it?» groaned Rhett. «Looks like he'll die. But he isthe best I could find in the shafts». [3, 32]
The use of anoun rather than an adjective is very often preferred as a more forcibleexpressive means to intensify the given quality. Compare the followingsynonymic forms of expression:
He was quite asuccess. — He was quite successful.
It was goodfun. — It was funny.
And here areillustrative examples of nouns weakening their meaning of «substance»and approaching adverbs.
Such adverbialuse shows great diversity. Deep-rooted in English grammar, this use is mostidiosyncratic in its nature. We find here patterns of different structuralmeaning:
a) adverbialrelations of time, as in: life long, week long, age long, etc.;
b) adverbial relations of comparison:straw yellow, silver grey, ash blond, ice cold, snow white, iron hard, skyblue, dog tired, paper white, pencil thin, ruler straight, primrose yellow,brick red, blade sharp;
c) different degree of quality:mountains high, a bit longer, a trifle easier, a shade darker, ankle deep.
Patterns ofthis kind are generally used metaphorically and function as expedients to expressintensity and emphasis, e. g.: «I'll send Pork to Macon to-morrow to buymore seed. Now the Yankies won't burn it and our troops won't need it. GoodLord, cotton ought to go sky high this fall». [5, p.234]
Furtherexamples are:
He is worldtoo modest. That was lots better. This was heaps better. He was stone deaf toour request. Waves went mountains high. The mud was ankle deep.
Adverbial useof nouns will also be found in such premodification structures as: bone tired,dog tired, mustard coloured, horror struck, etc.
In the grammarof nouns there have also developed interjectional uses which seem to convertnouns into special kind of «intensifiers», e. g.: What the dickens doyou want? What the mischief do you want?
Furtherexamples are:
The hell yousay = you don't say so.
Like hell Iwish \
I will likehell /I will not
Where in thehell you are going?
How the devilshould I know?
Adverbs ofaffirmation and negation yes and no are intensified in emphasis by theproximity of a bald bawling hell, e. g.: Hell, yes! Hell, no!
Englishplurals end in -s. In Russian, there are more endings to make plurals. They are: masculine ending in a hardconsonant; feminine ending in –a(ending for plural-ы); anynouns ending in -ь, -й, -я(-и); neuter ending in –e(-я); neuter ending in –o(-a); masculine and feminine ending in -k, -г, -x, -ч, -щ, -ж, -ш(-и). Examples: стол – столы, двeрь – двери, нога – ноги, мoре – моря, окно – окнa. [24]
Some nouns arealways singular. These are nouns that designate substances (oxygen, copper),products (cheese, fish), a block of objects (furniture), some actions (hunting,clearing up), feelings (love, health), some vegetables and berries (potato,carrots).
2.2 Thecategory of case of Nouns in English and in Russian languages
Grammariansseem to be divided in their opinion as to the case-system of English nouns.Open to thought and questioning, this problem has always been much debated. Themost common view on the subject is that nouns have only two cases: a commoncase and a genitive or possessive case.[21, p 69] The common case ischaracterised by a zero suffix (child, boy, girl, student), the possessive caseby the inflection [-z] and its phonetic variants [-s], [-iz], in spelling -'s.The uses of the genitive are known to be specific, those of the common casegeneral. In terms of modern linguistics, we can therefore say that bothformally and functionally, (he common case is unmarked and the genitive marked.
There aregrammarians, O.Curme and M. Deutschbein, forinstance, who recognise four cases making reference to nominative, genitive,dative and accusative: the genitive can be expressed by the -'s-inflection andby the of-phrase, the dative by the preposition to and by word-order, and theaccusative by word order alone. E. Sonnensсhein insists that English hasa vocative case since we may propose an interjection oh before a name. [3p. 35]
It is to benoted that the choice between the two opposite viewpoints as to the category ofcase in English remains a matter of linguistic approach. From the viewpoint ofinflectional morphology the inadequacy of «prepositional declension»is obvious. Using Latin categories which have no relevance for English involvesinventing distinctions for English and ignoring the distinctions that Englishmakes.
The meaning of«accusative» in a two-term system nominative — accusative, for instance, isdifferent from the meaning of «accusative» in a four- or five-termsystem. The term «common case» seems therefore more justified than«the accusative». If we call him an «accusative» in expressionslike I obey him, I am like him,It was on him, the term «accusative» may actually hinder when wetranslate into another language which has an accusative along with severalother cases and in which the word for obey takes the dative, the word for likethe genitive and the word on ablative, as they do in Latin.
«Ofcourse, the morphological opposition nominative — accusative must be expressed by something in English. But this»something" is not a morphological opposition, for there is nomorphological differentiation between the nominative and the accusative ofnouns". [3, 86]
We must not,of course, look at English through the lattice of categories set up in Latingrammar. The extent to which one can remain unconvinced that English has agrammar like Latin is probably the basis of the faulty viewpoint that Englishhas no grammar at all.
Latindistinguishes subject, direct object, indirect object by case-differences(differences in the inflexion of the word) and arrangement is not veryimportant. English also distinguishes subject, direct object, and indirectobject, but it does so largely by arrangement, e. g.:
The pupilhanded the teacher his exercise.
He bought hislittle girl many nice toys. [3,89]
With all this,it can hardly be denied that there exist in Modern English prepositionalstructures denoting exactly the same grammatical relation as, say, thepossessive case inflection or word order distinguishing the accusative from thedative. These are the so-called «of-phrase» and «to-phrase», in which the prepositions of and tofunction as grammatical indicators of purely abstract syntactic relationsidentical with those expressed by cases. The grammatical analysis of suchphrases for their frequency, variety and adaptation must, surely, go parallelwith the study of the morphological category of case which in present-dayEnglish is known to have developed quite a specific character.
The analyticalcharacter of some prepositional phrases in Russian is described by V. V. Vіnоgradоv: «В русскомлитературном языке с XVII—XVIII вв. протекает медленный, но глубокий процесссинтаксических изменений в системе падежных отношений. Функции многих падежейосложняются и дифференцируются сочетаниями с предлогами. Все ярчеобнаруживается внутреннее расслоение в семантической системе предлогов. В то времякак одни простые предлоги: для, до, перед, при, под, кроме, сквозь, через,между, а тем более предлоги наречного типа: близ, среди, мимо и т. п. — почтицеликом сохраняют свои реальные лексические значения, другие предлоги: а, за,из, в, на, отчасти, над, от, по, про, с, у — в отдельных сферах своегоупотребления, иные в меньшей степени, иные вплоть до полного превращения впадежные префиксы, ослабляют свои лексические значения, а иногда почти совсемтеряют их» [16, pp. 695—700]
It isimportant to remember that the grammatical content of the possessive case israther complex. Besides implying possession in the strict sense of the term, itis widely current in other functions.
Compare suchpatterns, as:
a) my sister'sroom (genitive of → the room of my sister possession)
b) my sister'sarrival (subjective → thearrival of my sister genitive)
c) thecriminal's arrest (objective → the arrest of the criminal genitive)
d) a child'slanguage (qualitative → thechildish language a woman's college genitive) → a college for women
e) a month'srent (genitive of → a monthly rent
f)three hours'delay / measure) → a delay for three hours
The same istrue of such uses as wife's duty, child's psychology, lawyer's life, man'sduty, etc. The genitive of measure or extent is easily recognised as fairlycommon in expressions of a certain pattern, e. g.: a moment's silence, a day's work, a minute'sreflection, to a hair's breadth, etc.
There is noformal difference between subjective and objective genitive, between genitivesdenoting possession and qualitative genitives, but this kind of ambiguity isusually well clarified by linguistic or situational context. Thus, mother'scare may mean «Любов матери» —with reference to some individual,and «материнськалюбов» inits general qualitative sense. The meaning of the phrase may vary with thecontext.
The genitiveinflection is also used with certain words which otherwise do not conform tonoun patterning, as in yesterday's rain, to-day's match, to-morrow'sengagement. These are not idioms, with their total lexical meaning fixed, butonly fixed patterns or usage.
Limits ofspace do not permit to take notice of all idiomatic patterns established inthis part of English grammar. A few further examples will suffice forillustration. These are, for instance: I'm friends with you, where friends isprobably part of the indivisible idiom «be friends with» + + noun/pronoun, used predicatively.
Patterns with«of + genitive» usuallyhave a portative sense denoting «one of», e. g.: It is a novel of J. London’s (=one ofhis novels). Cf. It is a novel by J. London. (=a novel written by J. London).
Similarly:Fleur's a cousin of ours, Jon. [3, p.83]
In expressivelanguage this form may become purely descriptive. Endowed with emotivefunctions in special linguistic or situational context it may weaken itsgrammatical meaning and acquire subjective modal force denoting admiration,anger, praise, displeasure, etc., e. g.: Margaret… was taken by surprise by certainmoods of her husband's. [2, 37]
The -'sinflection offers some peculiar difficulties of grammatical analysis inidiomatic patterns with the so-called group-genitives, e. g.: Mr. what's-his-name's remark, or He said it in plenty ofpeople's hearing.
There are alsopatterns like «the man I saw yesterday's son» quoted by H. Sweet. One moreexample.
The blonde Ihad been dancing with's name was Bernice something Crabs or Krebs. [2,p. 95]
We cannot failto see that the 's belongs here to the whole structure noun + attributiveclause.
Different kindof such group-genitives are not infrequent and seem to be on the increase inpresent-day colloquial English.
Mention shouldalso be made of the parallel use of the 's form and the preposition of found inpatterns like the following:
In the lightof this it was Lyman's belief and it is mine — that it is a man's duty and the dutyof his friend to see to it that his exit from this world, at least, shall bemade with all possible dignity. [2, p.53]
…a work'spopularity, the engine's overhaul life. [4, p.67]
And here are afew examples of special use of the possessive case in fossilised expressions ofthe formula character, such as: to one's heart's content, for pity's sake, outof harm's way, at one's fingers' ends, for old acquaintance's sake, forappearance's sake. These expressions were grammatically regular and explicablein their day, but they follow grammatical or semantic principles which have nowfallen into disuse.
A word shouldbe said about the purely idiomatic absolute use of the genitive case withlocative force in patterns like the following:
There are alsopleonastic patterns with the post-positional genitive intensifier own used withthe 's-form, e.g.: Mary'sown dressing-table.
I bought this at the grocer's.
The baker's isround the corner.
The famous St.Paul's is one of the principal sights of London.
Formations ofthis kind are on the borderline between grammar and vocabulary; the-'s-inflection seems to have developed into a derivative suffix used to form anoun from another noun.
The relativedistribution of the of-phrase and the 's-inflection, as a recurrent feature ofthe language, must be given due attention in learning style and usage inEnglish.
It isinteresting to note, in conclusion, that there is a change going on inpresent-day English which runs counter to the general trend towards loss ofinflections, that is the spreading of 's-genitive at the expense of theof-genitive. Until a few years ago, the genitive with 's was used in moderntimes mainly with nouns which could be replaced (in the singular) by thepronouns he and she, but not with nouns which could be replaced by the pronounit: so that people normally said the man's face and the woman's face, but theface of the clock and the surface of the water. The 's-genitive was used incertain expressions of time and distance (an hour's time), and could be used with many nounsreplaceable in the singular by it or they (the Government's decision); as iswell known, there was also a number of commonly used phrases where the's-genitive was used even though the noun was one which could be replaced inthe singular only by it (New Year's Day, the water's edge). In recent years,however, the 's-genitive has come into common use with nouns which arereplaceable in the singular only by it. Here are a few examples taken from reputablesources: resorts' weather → the weather of seaside towns; human nature's diversity → the diversity of humannature; the game's laws → the laws of the game. Many more examples willbe found in books and in newspapers. We cannot fail to see that this tendencyfor 's to replace of is a development from the analytic to the synthetic: theof-phrase is replaced by the 's-inflection.
The relativedistribution of the of-phrase and the 's-genitive as a recurrent feature of thelanguage, must be given due attention as relevant to synonymy in grammar.
It will beimportant to remember that the distinction between living and lifeless thingsis not closely observed, and the's-genitive is often used in designations ofthings to impart descriptive force and at the same time stress the governingnoun.
A few typicalexamples given by G. Curme are:
When I thinkof all the sorrow and the barrenness that has been wrought in my life by wantof a few more pounds per annum, I stand aghast at money's significance.
...for thesake of the mind's peace, one ought not to inquire into such things tooclosely.
A book'schances depend more on its selling qualities than its worth2.
Here is a verygood example from Galsworthy to illustrate the statement:
He had chosenthe furniture himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had everbeen able to change the room's atmosphere. [3, p.76]
Associationswith life are certainly strong in personification, e. g.: the ocean's roar orTruth's greatest victories, etc. Further illustrations taken from reputablesources are:
resorts'weather → the weather of seasidetowns
human nature'sdiversity →the diversityof human nature
the game'slaws → the laws of the game
The spreadingof the 's-genitive in present-day English at the expense of the of-phrase is,in fact, a development from the analytic to the synthetic which seems to runcounter to the general trends towards the loss of inflections. [5,p. 94]
The synonymicencounter of the 's-genitive and the of-phrase may be illustrated by exampleswith «genitive of possession», «subjective and objectivegenitive», but the use of the 's-genitive in Modern English iscomparatively restricted here and the of-phrase is very extensively used in virtuallythe same sense:
Soames'daughter →-the daughterof Soames
his sister'sarrival →-the arrivalof his sister
duty's call → the call of the duty
the children'seducation →the educationof the children
It is to benoted that in many cases the special meaning of the genitive depends on theintrinsic meaning of each of the two words connected, and is therefore in eachcase readily understood by the hearer. The of-phrase denoting possession isgenerally preferred when the noun is modified by a lengthy attributive adjunctattached to it.
The 's-form israrely used as the objective genitive. The of-phrase in this function is fairlycommon, e. g.: the sense of beauty, the sense of smell, love of life, thereading of books, the feeling of safety, a lover of poetry, etc.
The, of-phrasein Modern English is widely current in various types of structures, denoting:
a) the idea of quantity or part(«partitive genitive»), e. g.: a piece of bread, a lump of sugar, a cake of soap, etc.;
b) material of which a thing is done, e. g.: a dress of silk;
c) position in space or direction, e. g.: south of Moscow, within 10 miles of London;
d) relations of time, e. g.: of an evening, of late,all of a sudden;
e) attributive relations, e. g.: thelanguage of a child =a child's language, the voice of a woman =a woman's voice,etc.;
f) composition or measure, e. g.: a group of children, a herdof cattle, a flock of birds, a swarm of bees, etc.
There are alsopatterns with the of-phrase functioning as the appositive genitive, e. g.: the city of Rome, theRepublic of France, etc.
Alongside withthis appositive construction there is another. The appositive may be placedafter the governing noun, e. g.: Lake Michigan, the River Thames, etc.
Cases aresomething that is probably the most complicated concept of the Russian languageto the student that speaks only English. Old English had cases, but incontemporary English language you can notice cases and declension mostly inpersonal pronouns. In English you can see the changes in personal pronoun 'I',that is changed to 'me', 'my' or 'mine' according to its role in the sentence.
Cases areexactly that. When a noun has a different role in a sentence, that role isindicated by a change in the noun. In Russian language there are six cases:Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Locative and Instrumental. The casesystem in Russian does two things. First, it marks the grammatical functions ofnouns which are indicated by word order in English, that is, the subject,object and indirect object of the sentence. (This means that these nouns arefree to be ordered almost anywhere in the sentence since their function isclearly indicated by their form.) Second, cases mark certain adverbialfunctions such as the time, manner, and means of carrying our an action, whichare marked by prepositions in English, e.g. by hand, on Friday, with enthusiasmThis function leads to the case system being associated with prepositions.Remember: in Russian all prepositions are associated with a case which isattached to their objects. Since only nouns can express case, this means thatonly nouns may be objects of prepositions. [24]
Every noun inRussian must be selected for one of six categories when they are used in asentence. To indicate which category has been selected by the speaker, theendings of the noun are changed. This means that each (declinable) noun has up tosix different forms, differing only in the final letter or two on the end.
2.3 Thefunctions of Nouns in English and in Russian languages
The noun hascertain syntactical characteristics.
The chiefsyntactical functions of the noun in the sentence are those of the subject andthe object. But it might be used as an attribute or a predicative.
The sun wasrising in all his splendid beauty. [2, p.32] (subject)
Troy and Yatesfollowed the tourists. [5, p.59] (object)
He (Bosinney)was an architect… [3, p.83] (predicative)
Mary broughtin the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish… [5, p.78](attribute; the noun glass is used in the common case)
The hero andheroine, of course, just arrived from his father’s yacht. [5, p.104] (attribute;the noun father is used in the genitive case)
A nounpreceded by a preposition (a prepositional phrase) may be used as attribute,prepositional indirect object, and adverbial modifier.
To the leftwere clean panes of glass. [1, p.50] (attribute)
Bicket did notanswer, his throat felt too dry. He had heard of the police. [3, p.96] (object)
She went intothe drawing-room and lighted the fire. [2, p.254] (adverbial modifier)
«Stopeverything, Laura!» cried Jose in astonishment.[2, p.261] (adverbialmodifier)
The noun isgenerally associated with the article. Because of the comparative scarcity ofmorphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show that theword is noun.
The noun canbe modified by an adjective, a pronoun, by another noun or by verbals. The categorical functionalproperties of the noun are determined by its semantic properties.
The mostcharacteristic substantive function of the noun is that of the subject in thesentence, since the referent of the subject is the person or thing immediatelynamed. The function of the object in the sentence is also typical of the nounas the substance word. Other syntactic functions, i.e. attributive, adverbial,and even predicative, although performed by the noun with equal ease, are notimmediately characteristic of its substantive quality as such. It should benoted that, while performing these non-substantive functions, the nounessentially differs from the other parts of speech used in similar sentencepositions. This may be clearly shown by transformations shifting the noun fromvarious non-subject syntactic positions into subject syntactic positions of thesame general semantic value, which is impossible with other parts of speech.E.g.:
Mary is aflower-girl.→ the flower-girl (you are speaking of) is Mary. He lives inGlasgow.→ Glasgow is his place of residence. This happened three yearsago.→ Three years have elapsed since it happened.
Apart from thecited sentence-part functions, the noun is characterised by some special typesof combinability.
In particular,typical of the noun is the prepositional combinability with another noun, averb, an adjective, an adverb. E.g.: an entrance to the house; to turn roundthe corner; red in the face; far from its destination.
The casual(possessive) combinability characterises the noun alongside of itsprepositional combinability with another noun. E.g.: the speech of thePresident — the President's speech;the cover of the book — thebook's cover.
English nounscan also easily combine with one another by sheer contact, unmediated by anyspecial lexemic or morphemic means. In the contact group the noun inpreposition plays the role of a semantic qualifier to the noun inpost-position. E.g.: a cannon ball; a log cabin; a sports event; filmfestivals.
Thelexico-grammatical status of such combinations has presented a big problem formany scholars, who were uncertain as to the linguistic heading under which totreat them: either as one separateword, or a word-group. In the history of linguistics the controversy about thelexico-grammatical status of the constructions in question has received thehalf-facetious name «The cannon ball problem». [23]
Taking intoaccount the results of the comprehensive analysis undertaken in this field bySoviet linguists, we may define the combination as a specific word-group withintermediary features. Crucial for this decision is the isolability test (separationshift of the qualifying noun) which is performed for the contact nouncombinations by an easy, productive type of transformation. Cf.: a cannon ball→a ball for cannon; the court regulation→ the regulation of the court;progress report → report about progress; the funds distribution →the distribution of the funds.
Thecorresponding compound nouns (formed from substantive stems), as a rule, cannotundergo the isolability test with an equal ease. The transformations with the nouncompounds are in fact reduced to sheer explanations of their etymological motivation.The comparatively closer connection between the stems in compound nouns isreflected by the spelling (contact or hyphenated presentation). E.g.: fireplace→place where fire is made; starlight → light coming from stars;story-teller → teller (writer, composer) of stories; theatre-goer →a person who goes to (frequents) theatres.
Contact nounattributes forming a string of several words are very characteristic ofprofessional language. E.g.: A number of Space Shuttle trajectory optimisationproblems were simulated in the development of the algorithm, including threeascent problems and a re-entry problem (From a scientific paper on spacecraft).The accuracy of offshore tanker unloading operations is becoming more importantas the cost of petroleum products increases (From a scientific paper on controlsystems).
As a part ofspeech, the noun is also characterised by a set of formal features determiningits specific status in the lexical paradigm of nomination. It has itsword-building distinctions, including typical suffixes, compound stem models,conversion patterns. It discriminates the grammatical categories of gender,number, case, article determination, which will be analysed below. Subject and the verb in the followingsentence: The poor creature was laming. (Not: The tree was laming.)
The humanselectional base underlies the connection between the nouns in the followingcombination: John's love of music (not: the cat's love of music).
The phenomenonof subclass selection is intensely analysed as part of current linguisticresearch work.Conclusion
We had investigated the similarities and differences ofgrammatical categories of noun in English and in Russian languages. And during this analysiswe had found that Russian language as English has two numbers: singular and plural. The meaning of singular andplural seems to be self-explanatory. As we English plurals end in -s. But inRussian, there are more endings to make plurals. Some nouns are always singularas in English. These are nouns that designate substances (oxygen, copper),products (cheese, fish), a block of objects (furniture), some actions (hunting,clearing up), feelings (love, health), some vegetables and berries (potato,carrots).
The casesystem in Russian is more developed comparing with English. In English thereare only two cases: common case and genitive case. But in Russian language casesystem thereare six cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Locative andInstrumental.
The casesystem in Russian does two things. First, it marks the grammatical functions ofnouns which are indicated by word order in English, that is, the subject, objectand indirect object of the sentence. (This means that these nouns are free tobe ordered almost anywhere in the sentence since their function is clearlyindicated by their form.) Second, cases mark certain adverbial functions suchas the time, manner, and means of carrying our an action, which are marked byprepositions in English, e.g. by hand, on Friday, with enthusiasm This functionleads to the case system being associated with prepositions. Remember: inRussian all prepositions are associated with a case which is attached to theirobjects. Since only nouns can express case, this means that only nouns may beobjects of prepositions.
ConclusionWe hadinvestigated the noun in our course paper. We had chosen this theme because we wereinterested in it and also it is one of the most important part of speech inteaching grammar not only in English but in other languages too. Nouns playgreat role in the person’s speech as it expresses name of things, events, andphenomenon.In our course paperwe analyzed nouns as a expressions of social power.We used various referencesto investigate the noun. Inour course work we had investigatedthe similarities and differences of grammatical categories of noun in Englishand in Russian languages. Russian language as English distinguishes two numbers and the meaning of singular and plural seemsto be self-explanatory.
The classificationof nouns in these two languages is similar; there are two classes: proper nounsand common nouns, but in English this classification is narrowed (class nouns,collective noun, nouns of material, abstract nouns).
Cases aresomething that is probably the most complicated concept in Russian language tothe student that speaks only English. Old English had cases, but incontemporary English language you can notice cases and declension mostly inpersonal pronouns. The question about category of case in English for nowadayshas discussion character. It depends on approach which author uses in thisproblem; to English language was given different numbers of cases. M. Deibchainassumed understanding of case as combination of preposition with noun ininitial form; he supposed that there are four cases in English language:nominative, genitive (possessive), dative and accusative. But fundamentally,this version of the problem of case was represented in wrong way, so far ascase is word form, which has corresponding to case morpheme, as –’s in English.So we can note from typological characteristics of case category of noun thatall nouns in English are divided into two classes: words denote unanimatedthings, which have not the category of case; and words that denote animatedthings and time, which have two cases- nominative and possessive. If werecognize this point of view, it will correspond to the modern system of case;it means that in fact there is no category of case. In that moment we have newgrammatical category called genitive category, which represented by morpheme -’s.
So theanalysis of this similarities and differences in these two languages will helpteachers to teach grammar by comparing English with their mother tongue(Russian) or vice versa.
prepositionnoun language semantic
Bibliography
1. Beard, R. (1992). Number. In W. Bright (ed.) InternationalEncyclopedia of
2. Corbett,G. (2000). Number. Cambridge University Press.
3. Deutschbein.M. System der neuenglischen Syntax, 1928; G. Сurme. A Grammar of the EnglishLanguage. London-New York, 1931.
4. Francis.W. N. The Structure of AmericanEnglish. New York, 1958, p.234; see also: R. Quіrk. The Use of English. London, 1964, p. 74.
5. Fries.Ch. The Structure of English. An Introduction to the Construction of EnglishSentences. London, 1963, pp. 62-63, pp. 94—100.
6. IllyishB. The structure of Modern English M.- L. 1965
7. Laycock,Henry. (2005) 'Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns' Encyclopedia ofLanguage and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
8. Laycock,Henry. (2006) Words without Objects. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jespersen. Essentials of EnglishGrammar. London, 1933.
9. Otheradvanced books and detailed studies on this specialised topic are: В. М. Жирмунский. Об аналитическихконструкциях. В сб.: «Аналитические конструкции в языках различных типов».М.— Л… 1965;
10. RayevskaN.M. (1976) Modern English Grammar, Kiev, pp.67-72.
11. Sweet. H. A New English Grammar.Oxford, 1955.
12. Vinokurova,Nadezhda. 2005. Lexical categories and argument structure: a study withreference to Sakha.] Ph.D. diss. University of Utrecht.
13. William.Croft,1993. «A noun is a noun is a noun — or is it? Some reflections onthe universality of semantics.» Proceedings of the Nineteenth AnnualMeeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Joshua S. Guenter, Barbara A.Kaiser and Cheryl C. Zoll,. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
14. Блох. М.Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. М., 1983; стр
15. В. Н.Жигадло, И. П. Иванова, Л. Л. Иофик. Современный английский язык. М.,1956,
16. Иванова,Л. Л. Иофик. Современный английский язык. М.— Л., 1956;
17. О. Jespersen.A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. London-Copenhagen, 1965;
18. Смирницкий.И.Лексикология английского языка. М., 1956;
19. Щepба. Л. В. О частях речи в русском языке. В сб.: «Русская речь», 1928, р.6;
20. Ярцева.Проблема парадигмы в языке аналитического строя. В сб.: «Вопросыгерманского языкознания». M.— Л., 1961, p. 229;
21. Ярцева. B. H. Историческая морфология английского языка. M.— Л., 1960;
22. Ярцева В.H… Исторический синтаксис английскогоязыка. М.— Л., 1961;
23. www.answers.com/topic/agreement –linguistics
24. www.alpha.com/rusgrammar/time.
Literary work
1. Bronte,E. «Jane Eyre»,
2. FrankHerbert «Dune»
3. Galsworthy«Saga of Forsytes»
4. HoltTom «Who is afraid of Beowulf»
5. MichaelJudith «A Certain Smile»,
6. RiceAnna «Savant of bones»
7. ShakespeareWilliam, «The remarkable rocket».
8. TolkienJ.R.R. «The return of thinking»
9. Брюсов,Сочинение в двух томах. Том 1
10. Лермонтов «Русскаялитература»
11. Пушкин А.С.Сочинение в трех томах. Том 2
12. Тютчев «Изучениелирики в школе»
13. Фет «Русскаялитература»
Appendix
Oppositionalrelations between different parts of speech may be thus shown as follows:Autosemantic Synsemantic noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, numeral preposition, conjunction, particle, auxiliary verb, copula Function Words Syntactic Functions Morphological Functions preposition, conjunction, particle, copula article, auxiliary verb
CollectiveNouns, Company Names, Family Names, Sports Teams
There are,further, so called collective nouns, which are singular when we think of themas groups and plural when we think of the individuals acting within the whole(which happens sometimes, but not often).
audience
band
class
committee
crowd
dozen
family
flock
group
heap
herd
jury
kind
lot
(the) number
public
staff
team
Nouns that canbe Countable and Uncountable
Sometimes, thesame noun can be countable and uncountable, often with a change of meaning.Countable Uncountable There are two hairs in my coffee! hair I don't have much hair. There are two lights in our bedroom. light Close the curtain. There's too much light! Shhhhh! I thought I heard a noise. noise It's difficult to work when there is too much noise. Have you got a paper to read? (= newspaper) paper I want to draw a picture. Have you got some paper? Our house has seven rooms. room Is there room for me to sit here? We had a great time at the party. time Have you got time for a coffee? Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest works. work I have no money. I need work!
UncountableNouns
Uncountablenouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into separateelements. We cannot «count» them. For example, we cannot count«milk». We can count «bottles of milk» or «litres ofmilk», but we cannot count «milk» itself. Here are some moreuncountable nouns:
/>
CountableNouns
Countablenouns are easy to recognize. They are things that we can count. For example:«pen». We can count pens. We can have one, two, three or more pens.Here are some more countable nouns:
/>RUSSIAN CASE FUNCTIONS IN BRIEF
1. Nominative The Subject case
· Subject of the sentence
· Extra-linguistic usage (dictionary entries, signs, etc.)
· Prepositions: за '(what) kind of?' Что он за человек? What kind of person is he? в: 'join the ranks of* (PI. only) вступить в коммунисты Join the communists.
2. Accusative The Object case
· Direct Object
· Prepositions indicating motion в, на, за, под plus others: про, через, сквоз, о, с
· Time expressions (Imperfectives) каждую ночь, всю ночь (Perfective) в тот же день, в пятницу
3. Genitive The of case
· Possession
· Numbers 2,3,4 (Only when Nom/Acc—GenSg)
· Numbers above 5 & Quantifiers (Only when Nom/Acc—Gen Pl)
· Negated Verbs (which take Acc. D.O.'s) to indicate total absence
· Time expressions
· Prepositions: без, вместо, возле, вокруг, впереди, для, до, из, из-за, кроме, мимо, около, после, против, среди, у, близ, вдоль, вне, внутри, чего-то + Genitive
· Verbs: боя-ся, жда-, иска-
· Adjectives: полный + Genitive
4. Dative The to/for case
· Indirect Object
· Impersonal Constructions Мне холодно.
· Auxialiaries: нужно, надо, можно/нельзя
· Prepositions по, к, (согласно, благодаря)
· Time expressions (Iterative) по средам = каждую среду
· Age Мне двадцать два года, пять лет
· Verbs: вери-, помог-, совет(ова), звони-, удиви-ся + Dative
5. Prepositional The Place case
· Prepositions of place в and на
· Two other prepositions: о, при (This case is used only with prepositions)
6. Instrumental The by/with case
· Means by which action is carried out: Он писал письмо карандашом.
· Durational time expressions (groups of 4): летом, etc.; утром, etc.
· Logical subject of passive sentences: Письмо написано Иваном.
· Verbs: интерес(ова)ся, польз(ова)ся, занимай-ся + Instrumental
· Predicates of connective verbs (быть, стать, остаться, казаться, оказаться): Он был студентом.
· Second Direct Objects Его считают студентом.
· Prepositions of position: за, перед, над, под, между, с
· Adjectives: довольный чем-то
Number
English plurals end in -s. In Russian,there are more endings to make plurals. Theyare all summed up in the table: Noun type Ending for plural Example masculine ending in a hard consonant; feminine ending in -a -ы стол — столы any nouns ending in -ь, -й, -я -и двeрь — двери masculine and feminine ending in -k, -г, -x, -ч, -щ, -ж, -ш, -и нога — ноги neuter ending in -o -a окно — окнa neuter ending in -e -я мoре — моря
There are someplurals which have been borrowed from foreign nouns:Singular Plural Latin agendum agenda datum data dictum dicta erratum errata memorandum memoranda medium media stratum strata focus foci formula formulae fungus fungi genus genera axis axes appendix appendices series series species species Singular Plural Greek analysis analyses basis bases crisis crises hypothesis hypotheses parenthesis parentheses thesis theses phenomenon phenomena criterion criteria Singular Plural French beau beaux (or beaus) bureau bureaux monsieur messieurs madame mesdames
Modality playsa great role in the person’s speech, as it expresses speaker’s attitudes toactions of other people. In our diploma paper we analyzed modality asexpressions of social power, morphological and semantic features of modal verbsas they express modality.
We haveproposed to view the core meanings of the modal verbs as determined by thepower structure of the speech act situation where they are used. We have foundthat the different participants’ expectations about each other’s attitudescombined with the social power structure largely determine the usage, and thereby the semantics of modals. Our general semantic approach should, however, beapplicable to all languages with modal verbs.
Modal verbstake a special place in grammar, but they are also examined by semanticscience. That’s why disagreement appeared between grammar and semanticsciences. Now modal verbs are the subject of grammar, which consider not onlythe structural characteristics, but also studies semantic loading of modalverbs.
The categoryof modal verbs include request, order, imperative, command, approval,disapproval, reproach, an opportunity, skill, a duty, a prediction, theassumption and etc.
In our diploma paper we also analyzed semantic features of modal verbs.We have found out that modal verbs are concerned defective as many modal verbshave no form of future time, they have the equivalents among nominal verbs. Inthis connection, equivalents of modal verbs in our work have involved in theseparate semantic analysis.
Drawingconclusion of our work, we can tell, that each modal verb and its equivalentshave several values. These values frequently coincide with values of othermodal verbs, but have the own special characteristic, each of characteristicsproves to be true from examples in colloquial and literary speech.