Contents
Introduction
1. What isNoun?
2. Semantical Characteristics of English Nouns
3.The Category of Case
4.The Category of Number of English Nouns
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The theme of my course paper sounds as following: «EnglishNouns and Their Grammatical Categories». Before beginning ofinvestigation in our theme, I would like to say some words dealt with the themeof my course paper.
The noun is a word expressing substance in the widest senseof the word. In the concept of substance we include not only names of livingbeings (e.g. boy, girl, bird) and lifeless things (e.g. table, chair, book),but also names of abstract notions, i.e. qualities, slates, actions (kindness,strength, sleep, fear, conversation, fight), abstracted from their bearers. Inspeech these types of nouns are treated in different ways, so one, who does notknow ways of treatment, can make mistakes in his speech.
Standing on such ground, I would like to point out tasks andaims of my work
1. The first task of my work is to give definition to term «Noun».
2. Second task is to describe main features of English nouns.
3. And the last task is to describe grammatical categoriesthat nouns possesses.
In our opinion the practical significance of our work is hardto be overvalued. This work reflects modern trends in linguistics and we hopeit would serve as a good manual for those who wants to master modern Englishlanguage.
The present work might find a good way of implying in thefollowing spheres:
1. In High Schools and scientific circles oflinguistic kind it can be successfully used by teachers and philologists asmodern material for writing research works dealing with English nouns.
2. It can be used by teachers of schools, lyceums andcolleges by teachers of English as a practical manual for teaching Englishgrammar.
3. It can be useful for everyone who wants to enlarge his/herknowledge in English.
The present course paper consists of four parts:introduction, the main part, conclusion and bibliography. Within the introductionpart, which includes two items we gave the brief description of ourqualification work (the first item) and gave general notion of the word «noun».The main part of our qualification work includes several items. There wediscussed such problems as definition of nouns, main features of English nouns,their grammatical categories. In the conclusion to our qualification work wetried to draw some results from the scientific investigations made within themain part of our qualification work. In bibliography part we mentioned morethan 20 sources of which were used while compiling the present work. Itincludes linguistic books and articles dealing with the theme, a number of useddictionaries and encyclopedias and also some internet sources.
1. What isNoun?
The word «noun» comes fromthe Latin nomen meaning «name». Word classes like nouns were first described bySanskrit grammarian Panini and ancient Greeks like Dionysius Thorax, anddefined in terms of their morphological properties. For example, in AncientGreece, nouns can be inflected for grammatical case, such as dative oraccusative. Verbs, on the other hand, can be inflected for tenses, such aspast, present or future, while nouns cannot. Aristotle also had a notion ofonomata (nouns) and rhemata (verbs) which, however, does not exactly correspondour notions of verbs and nouns. In her dissertation, Vinokurova has a moredetailed discussion of the historical origin of the notion of a noun.Expressionsof natural language will have properties at different levels. They have formalproperties, like what kinds of morphological prefixes or suffixes they cantake, and what kinds of other expressions they can combine with. but they alsohave semantic properties, i.e. properties pertaining to their meaning. Thedefinition of nouns on the top of this page is thus a formal definition. Thatdefinition is uncontroversial, and has the advantage that it allows us toeffectively distinguish nouns from non-nouns. However, it has the disadvandagethat it does not apply to nouns in all languages. For example in Russian, thereare no definite articles, so one cannot define nouns by means of those. Thereare also several attempts of defining nouns in terms of their semanticproperties. Many of these are controversial, but some are discussed below.
In traditional schoolgrammars, one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are all andonly those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance,quality, or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. It has been criticized bycontemporary linguists as being quite uninformative. Part of the problem isthat the definition makes use of relatively general nouns («thing», «phenomenon»,«event») to define what nouns are. The existence of such general nouns shows usthat nouns are organized in taxonomic hierarchies. But other kinds ofexpressions are also organized in hierarchies. For example all of the verbs «stroll»,«saunter,» «stride,» and «tread» are more specific words than the more general «walk.»The latter is more specific than the verb «move»/ But it is unlikely that suchhierarchies can be used to define nouns and verbs. Furthermore, an influentialtheory has it that verbs like «kill» or «die» refer to events, and so they fallunder the definition. Similarly, adjectives like «yellow» or «difficult» mightbe thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like «outside» or «upstairs» seemto refer to places. Worse still, a trip into the woods can be referred to bythe verbs «stroll» or «walk»/ But verbs, adjectives and adverbs are not nouns,and nouns aren't verbs. So the definition is not particularly helpful indistinguishing nouns from other parts of speech.
Another semantic definitionof nouns is that they are prototypically referential. That definition is alsonot very helpful in distinguishing actual nouns from verbs. But it may stillcorrectly identify a core property of nounhood. For example, we will tend touse nouns like «fool» and «car» when we wish to refer to fools and cars,respectively. The notion that this is prototypical reflects the fact that suchnouns can be used, even though nothing with the corresponding property isreferred to:
John is no fool.
If I had a car, I'd go to Marrakech.
The first sentence abovedoesn't refer to any fools, nor does the second one refer to any particularcar.
In most cases in treating English nouns weshall keep to the conception of scientists that we refer to post-structuraltendency It's because they combine the ideas of traditional and structuralgrammarians. The noun is classified into a separate word – group because:
1. they all have the same lexical – grammaticalmeaning:
substance / thing
2. according to their form – they've two grammaticalcategories:
number and case
3. they all have typical stem-buildingelements:
– er, – ist, – ship, – ment, – hood….
4. typical combinability with other words:
most often left-hand combinability.
5. function – the most characteristicfeature of nouns is – they can be observed in all syntactic functions butpredicate.
Fromthe grammatical point of view most important is the division of nouns into countableand un-countable with regard to the category of number and into declinable and indeclinablewith regard to the category of case[1].
2.Semantical Characteristics of English Nouns
Nounsfall under two classes: (A) proper nouns; (B) common nouns[2].
a)Proper nouns are individual, names given to separate persons or things. Asregards their meaning proper nouns may be personal names (Mary, Peter, Shakespeare),geographical names (Moscow, London, the Caucasus), the names of the months andof the days of the week (February, Monday), names of ships, hotels, clubs, etc.
Alarge number of nouns now proper were originally common nouns (Brown, Smith,Mason).
Propernouns may change their meaning and become common nouns:
«Georgewent over to the table and took a sandwich and a glass of champagne.(Aldington)
b)Common nouns are names that can be applied to any individual of ad ass of personsor things (e.g. man, dog, book), collections of similar individuals or thingsregarded as a single unit (e. g. peasantry, family), materials (e. g. snow,iron, cotton) or abstract notions (e.g. kindness, development).
Thusthere are different groups of common nouns: class nouns, collective nouns,nouns of material and abstract nouns.
1.Class nouns denote persons or things belonging to a class. They are countableand have two. numbers: singular and plural. They are generally used with anarticle.
«Well,sir», said Mrs. Parker, «I wasn't in the shop above a great deal.» (Mansfield)
Hegoes to the part of the town where the shops are. (Lessing)
2.Collective nouns denote a number or collection of similar individuals or thingsas a single unit.
Collectivenouns fall under the following groups:
(a) nounsused only in the singular and denoting-a number of things collected togetherand regarded as a single object: foliage, machinery.
Itwas not restful, that green foliage. (London)
Machinerynew to the industry in Australia was introduced for preparing land.(Agricultural Gazette)
(b) nounswhich are singular in form though plural in meaning:
police,poultry, cattle, people, gentry They are usually called nouns of multitude.When the subject of the sentence is a noun of multitude the verb used aspredicate is in the plural:
Ihad no idea the police were so devilishly prudent. (Shaw)
Unlesscattle are in good condition in calving, milk production will never reach ahigh level. (Agricultural Gazette)
Theweather was warm and the people were sitting at their doors. (Dickens)
(c)nouns that may be both singular and plural: family, crowd, fleet, nation. Wecan think of a number of crowds, fleets or different nations as well as of asingle crowd, fleet, etc.
Asmall crowd is lined up to see the guests arrive. (Shaw)
Accordinglythey were soon afoot, and walking in the direction of the scene of action,towards which crowds of people were already pouring from a variety of quarters.(Dickens)
3.Nouns of material denote material: iron, gold, paper, tea, water. They are uncountableand are generally used without any article.
Therewas a scent of honey from the lime-trees in flower. (Galsworthy)
Therewas coffee still in the urn. (Wells)
Nounsof material are used in the plural to denote different sorts of a givenmaterial.
…that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and had consigned aquantity of select wines to him… (Thackeray)
Nounsof material may turn into class nouns (thus becoming countable) when they cometo express an individual object of definite shape.
Compare:
– Tothe left were clean panes of glass. (Ch. Bronte)
«Hecame in here,» said the waiter looking at the light through the tumbler, «ordereda glass of this ale.» (Dickens)
Butthe person in the glass made a face at her, and Miss Moss went out.(Mansfield).
4.Abstract nouns denote some quality, state, action or idea: kindness, sadness,fight. They are usually uncountable, though some of them may be countable.
Thereforewhen the youngsters saw that mother looked neither frightened nor offended,they gathered new courage. (Dodge)
Accustomedto John Reed's abuse – I never had an idea of plying it. (Ch. Bronte)
It'sthese people with fixed ideas. (Galsworthy)
Abstractnouns may change their meaning and become class nouns. This change is marked bythe use of the article and of the plural number:
beauty abeauty beauties
sight asight sights
Hewas responsive to beauty and here was cause to respond. (London)
Shewas a beauty. (Dickens)
…but she isn't one of those horrid regular beauties. (Aldington)
3.The Category of Case
Thecategory of case of nouns is the system of opposites (such as girl–girl's inEnglish, дом – дома – дому – дом – домом – (о) доме in Russian)showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relationsreflect the relations of the substances the nouns name to other substances,actions, states, etc. in the world of reality [3].In the sentence ‘I took John's hat by mistake’ the case of the noun ‘John's’shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some reflection of the relationsbetween John and his hat in reality.
Caseis one of those categories which show the close connection:
(a)between language and speech,
(b)between morphology and syntax.
(a)A case opposite is, like any other opposite, a unit of the language system, butthe essential difference between the members of a case opposite is in theircombinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Russianwith a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of thenominative case and that of the oblique cases. See also the difference in thecombinability of each oblique case: одобрять поступок, не одобрять поступка, удивляться поступку, восхищаться поступком, etc.
Wecan see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter ofmeaning as a matter of combinability. It can be said that поступок – поступка – поступку, etc. areunited paradigmatically in the Russian language on the basis of theirsyntagmatic differences in speech. Similarly, the members of the case oppositeJohn – John's are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmaticdifferences.
Naturally,both members of an English noun case opposite have the features of Englishnouns, including their combinability. Thus, they may be preceded by an article,an adjective, a numeral, a pronoun, etc.
astudent…. a student's…
thestudent…, the student's…
agood student…, a good student's…
hisbrother…, his brother's…
thetwo brothers…, the two brothers'…
Yet,the common case grammemes are used in a variety of combinations where thepossessive case grammemes do not, as a rule, occur. In the following examples,for instance, John's or boys' can hardly be substituted for John or boys: Johnsaw the boys, The boys were seen by John, It was owing to the boys that…, Theboys and he…, etc.
(b)Though case is a morphological category it has a distinct syntacticalsignificance. The common case grammemes fulfil a number of syntacticalfunctions not typical of possessive case grammemes, among them the functions ofsubject and object. The possessive case noun is for the most part employed asan attribute.
Allcase opposites are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings,of 'common' case and 'possessive' case, united by the general meaning of thecategory, that of 'case'. There is not much variety in the form of case oppositeseither, which distinguishes English from Russian.
AnEnglish noun lexeme may contain two case opposites at most (man – man's, men – men's).Some lexemes have but one opposite (England – England's, cattle – cattle's).Many lexemes have no case opposites at all (book, news, foliage),
Inthe opposite dog – dog's, men – men's, the 'common' case is not marked, i.e.dog and men have zero morphemes of 'common case'. The 'possessive' case ismarked by the suffix -'s /-s, – z, – iz/. In the opposite dogs – dogs.' thedifference between the opposites is marked only in writing. Otherwise the twoopposites do not differ in form. So with regard to each other they are-notmarked.
Thus,-'s is the only positive case morpheme of English nouns. It would be no exaggerationto say that the whole category' depends on this morpheme.
Asalready mentioned, with regard to the category of case English nouns fall undertwo lexicon-grammatical subclasses: declinable, having case opposites, and indeclinable,having no case opposites.
Thesubclass of declinable is comparatively limited, including mostly nounsdenoting living beings, also time and distance [4].
Indeclinablelike book, iron, care have, as a norm, only the potential (or oblique, or lexicon-grammatical)meaning of the common case. But it is sometimes actualized when a case oppositeof these words is formed in speech, as in ‘The book's philosophy isold-fashioned’. (The Tribune, Canada).
Asusual, variants of one lexeme may belong to different subclasses. Youth meaning'the state of being young' belongs to the indeclinable. Its variant youthmeaning 'a young man' has a case opposite (The youth's candid smile disarmedher. Black and belongs to the declinable.
Sinceboth cases and prepositions show 'relations of substances', some linguistsspeak of analytical cases in Modern English. To the student is said to be ananalytical dative case (equivalent, for instance, to the Russian студенту), of thestudent is understood as an analytical genitive case (equivalent to студента), by thestudent as an analytical instrumental case (cf. студентом), etc.
Thetheory of analytical cases seems to be unconvincing for a number of reasons.
1. Inorder to treat the combinations of the student, to the student, by the studentas analytical words (like shall come or has come) we must regard of, to, withas grammatical word-morphemes [5]. But thenthey are to be devoid of lexical meaning, which they are not. Like most words apreposition is usually polysynaptic and each meaning is singled out in speech,in a sentence or a word-combination. Cf. to speak of the student, the speech ofthe student, news of the student, it was kind of the student, what became ofthe student, etc.
Ineach case of shows one of its lexical meanings. Therefore it cannot be regardedas a grammatical word-morpheme and the combination of the student cannot betreated as an analytical word.
2. Agrammatical category, as known, is represented in opposites comprising adefinite number of members. Combinations with different prepositions are toonumerous to be interpreted as opposites representing the category of case[6].
Thenumber of cases in English becomes practically unlimited.
3. Analyticalwords usually form opposites with synthetic ones[7] (comes– came – will come). With prepositional constructions it is different. They areoften synonymous with synthetic words.
E.g. the son of my friend = my friend's son; the wall of the garden = the. gardenwall.
Onthe other hand, prepositional constructions can be used side by side withsynthetic cases, as in that doll of Mary's, a friend of John's. If we acceptedthe theory of analytical cases, we should see in of John's a double-case word[8],which would be some rarity in English, there being •'no double-tense words nordouble-aspect words and the like [9].
4.There is much subjectivity in the choice of prepositions supposed to formanalytical cases[10]. Grammariansusually point out those prepositions whose meanings approximate to the meaningsof some cases in other languages or in Old English. But the analogy with otherlanguages or with an older stage of the same language does not prove theexistence of a given category in a modern language.
Thereforewe think it unjustified to speak of units like to the student, of the student,etc. as of analytical cases. They are combinations of nouns in the common casewith prepositions.
Themorpheme -'s, on which the category of case of English nouns depends (§ 83),differs in some respects from other grammatical morphemes of the Englishlanguage and from the case morphemes of other languages.
Asemphasized by B.A. Ilyish [11], -'s is nolonger a case inflexion in the classical sense of the word. Unlike suchclassical inflexions, -'s may be attached
a) toadverbs (of substantial origin), as in yesterday's events,
b) toword-groups, as in Mary and John's apartment, our professor of literature'sunexpected departure,
c) evento whole clauses, as in the well-worn example the man I saw yesterday's son.
В. A. Ilyishcomes to-the conclusion that the -'s morpheme gradually develops into a «form-word»[12],a kind of particle serving to convey the meaning of belonging, possession[13].
G.N. Vorontsovadoes not recognize –‘s as a case morpheme at all[14].The reasons she puts forward to substantiate her point of view are as follows:
1) Theuse of -'s is optional (her brother's, of her brother).
2) Itis used with a limited group of nouns outside which it occurs very seldom.
3) -'sis used both in the singular and in the plural (child's, children's), which isnot incident – to case morphemes (cf. мальчик‑а, мальчик-ов).
4) Itoccurs in very few plurals, only those with the irregular formation of theplural member (oxen's but cows').
5) -'sdoes not make an inseparable part of the structure of the word. It may beplaced at some distance from the head-noun of an attributive group.
«Beenreading that fellow what's his name's attacks in the 'Sunday Times'?» (Bennett).
Proceedingfrom these facts G.N. Vorontsova treats -'s as a 'postposition', a 'purelysyntactical form-word resembling a preposition', used as a sign of syntacticaldependence[15].
Inkeeping with this interpretation of the -'s morpheme the author denies theexistence of cases in Modern English.
Atpresent, however, this extreme point of view can hardly be accepted[16].The following arguments tend to show that -'s does function as a case morpheme.
1.The -'s morpheme is mostly attached to individual nouns e, not noun groups.According to our statistics this is observed in 96 per cent of examples withthis morpheme. Instances like The man I saw yesterday's son are very rare andmay be interpreted in more ways than one. As already mentioned, the demarcationline between words and combinations of words is very vague in English. Aword-combination can easily be made to function as one word.
Cf.a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establishment (O. Henry), theeighty-year-olds (D.W.).
Inthe last example the plural morpheme – s is in fact attached to an adjectiveword-combination, turning it into a noun. It can be maintained that the samemorpheme –‘s likewise substantives the group of words to which it is attached,and we get something like the man‑1‑saw-yesterday's son.
2. Itsgeneral meaning – «the relation of a noun to an other word» – is a typical casemeaning.
3. Thefact that -'s occurs, as a rule, with a more or less limited group of wordsbears testimony to its not being a «preposition-like form word». The use of thepreposition is determined, chiefly, by the meaning of the preposition itselfand not by the meaning of the noun it introduces (Cf. оn the table, in thetable, under the table, over the table etc.)
4. Thefact that the possessive case is expressed in oxen – oxen's by -'s and in cows –cows' by zero cannot serve as an argument against the existence of cases inEnglish nouns because -'s and zero are here forms of the same morpheme
a) Theirmeanings are identical.
b) Theirdistribution is complementary.
5. Asa minor argument against the view that -'s is «a preposition-like word», it ispointed out[17] that -'sdiffers phonetically from all English prepositions in not having a vowel, acircumstance limiting its independence.
Yet,it cannot be denied that the peculiarities of the -'s morpheme are such as toadmit no doubt of its being essentially different from the case morphemes ofother languages. It is evident that the case system of Modern English isundergoing serious changes.
4.The Category of Number of English Nouns
Thecategory of number of English nouns is the system of opposites (such as girl – girls,foot – feet, etc.) showing whether the noun stands for one object or more thanone, in other words, whether its grammatical meaning is 'oneness' or'more-than-oneness' of objects.
Theconnection of the category with the world of material reality, though indirect,is quite transparent. Its meanings reflect the existence of individual objectsand groups of objects in the material world.
Allnumber opposites are identical in content: they contain two particular meaningsof 'singular' and 'plural' united by the general meaning of the category, thatof 'number'. But there is a considerable variety of form in number opposites,though it is not so great as in the Russian language.
AnEnglish noun lexeme can contain two number opposites at most (toy – boys, boy's– boys'). Many lexemes have but one oppose me (table – tables) and many othershave no opposites at all (ink, news).
Inthe opposite boy – boys 'singularity' is expressed by a zero morpheme and'plurality' is marked by the positive morpheme /-z/, in spelling – .s. In otherwords, the 'singular' member of the opposite is not marked, and the 'plural'member is marked.
Inthe opposite boy's – boys' both members have positive morphemes –‘s, – s’, butthese morphemes can be distinguished only in writing. In the spoken languagetheir forms do not differ, so with regard to each other they are unmarked. Theycan be distinguished only by their combinability (cf. a boy's head, boys'heads).
Ina few noun lexemes of foreign origin both members of a number opposite aremarked, e.g. symposium – symposia, genus – genera, phenomenon–phenomena, etc.But in the process of assimilation this peculiarity of foreign nouns getsgradually lost, and instead of medium – media a new opposite develops, medium –mediums; instead of formula – formulae, the usual form now is formula – formulas.In this process, as we see, the foreign grammatical morphemes are neglected assuch. The ‘plural’ morpheme is dropped altogether. The 'singular' morphemebecomes part of the stem. Finally, the regular – s ending is added to form the'plural' opposite. As a result the 'singular' becomes unmarked, as typical ofEnglish, and the 'plural' gets its usual mark, the suffix – s.
Sincethe 'singular' member of a number opposite is not marked, the form of the oppositeis, as a rule, determined by the form of the 'plural' morpheme, which, in itsturn, depends upon the stem of the lexeme.
Inthe overwhelming majority of cases the form of the 'plural' morpheme is /-s/,/-z/, or /-z/, in spelling – (e) s, e. g, books, boys, matches.
Withthe stem ox – the form of the 'plural' morpheme is – en /-n/.
Inthe opposite man–men the form of the 'plural' morpheme is the vowel change /æ> e/. In woman – women ii is /u > i/, in foot – feet it is /u – i:/, etc.
Inchild – children the form of the 'plural' morpheme is complicated. It consistsof the vowel change /ai > i/ and the suffix – ren.
Insheep – sheep the 'plural' is not marked, thus coinciding in form with the'singular'. They can be distinguished only by their combinability: ‘one sheep’,‘five sheep’, ‘a sheep was…’, ‘sheep were…’, ‘this sheep’, ‘these sheep’. The'plural' coincides in form with the 'singular' also in ‘deer, fish, carp,perch, trout, cod, salmon’, etc.[18]
Allthe 'plural' forms enumerated here are forms of the same morpheme. This can beproved, as we know, by the identity of the 'plural' meaning, and thecomplementary distribution of these forms, i.e. the fact that different formsare used with different stems.
Asalready mentioned [19], with regardto the category of number English nouns fall into two subclasses: countable anduncountable. The former have number opposites, the latter have not. Uncountablenouns are again subdivided into those having no plural opposites and thosehaving no singular opposites.
Nounslike milk, geometry, self-possession having no plural opposites are usuallycalled by a Latin name – singularia tantum. Nouns like outskirts, clothes,goods having no singular opposites are known as pluralia tantum.
Asa matter of fact, those nouns which have no number opposites are outside thegrammatical category of number. But on the analogy of the bulk of English nounsthey acquire oblique (or lexicon-grammatical) meanings of number. Thereforesingularia tantum are often treated as singulars and pluralia tantum asplurals.
Thisis justified both by their forms and by their combinability.
Cf.This (table, book, milk, love) is…
These(tables, books, clothes, goods) are…
Whencombinability and form contradict each other, combinability is decisive, whichaccounts for the fact that ‘police’ or ‘cattle’ are regarded as plurals, and‘measles’, ‘mathematics as singulars.
Thelexicon-grammatical meaning of a class (or of a subclass) of words is, as weknow, an abstraction from the lexical meanings of the words of the class, anddepends to a certain extent on those lexical meanings. Therefore singulariatantum usually include nouns of certain lexical meanings. They are mostlymaterial, abstract and collective nouns, such as sugar, gold, butter,brilliance, constancy, selfishness, humanity, soldiery, peasantry.
Yetit is not every material, abstract or collective noun that belongs to the groupof singularia tantum (e. g. a plastic, a feeling, a crowd) and, what is moreimportant, not in all of its meanings does a noun belong to this group.
Aswe have already seen[20], variants ofthe same lexeme may belong to different subclasses of a part of speech. In mostof their meanings the words joy and sorrow as abstract nouns are singulariatantum.
E.g.He has been a good friend both in joy and in sоrгоw. (Horney).
Butwhen concrete manifestations are meant, these nouns are countable and haveplural opposites, e. g. the joys and sorrows of life.
Likewise,the words copper, tin, hair as material nouns are usually singularia tantum,but when they denote concrete objects, they become countable and get pluralopposites: a copper – coppers, a tin – tins, a hair – hairs.
Similarly,when the nouns wine, steel, salt denote some sort or variety of the substance,they become countable.
E.g.an expensive wine – expensive wines.
Allsuch cases are not a peculiarity of the English language alone. They are foundin other languages as well. Cf. дерево – деревья and дерево.is a materialnoun, платье – платья and платье as acollective noun.
‘Joy’and ‘a joy’, ‘beauty’ and ‘a beauty’, ‘copper’ and ‘a copper’, ‘hair’ and ‘ahair’ and many other pairs of this kind are not homonyms, as suggested by somegrammarians[21], butvariants of lexemes related by internal conversion.
Ifall such cases were regarded as homonyms, the number of homonyms in the Englishlanguage would be practically limitless. If only some of them were treated ashomonyms, that would give rise to uncontrolled subjectivity.
Thegroup of pluralia tantum is mostly composed of nouns denoting objectsconsisting of two or more parts, complex phenomena or ceremonies, e. g. tongs,pincers, trousers, nuptials, obsequies. Here also belong some nouns with adistinct collective or material meaning, e.g. clothes, eaves, sweets.
Sincein these words the – s suffix does not function as a grammatical morpheme, itgets lexicalized and develops into an inseparable part of the stem [22].This, probably, underlies the fact that such nouns as mathematics, optics,linguistics, mumps, measles are treated as singularia tantum.
Nounslike police, militia, cattle, poultry are pluralia tantum, judging by theircombinability, though not by form [23].
Peoplein the meaning of «народ» is a countable noun. In the meaning of «люди» it belongsto the pluralia tantum. Family in the sense of «a group of people who arerelated» is a countable noun. In the meaning of «individual members of thisgroup» it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Thus, the lexeme family has twovariants:
Sg. PL
1) family families
2) – family
E.g. Almost every family in the village has sent a man to the army. (Horney).
Thosewere the oldest families in Jorkshire. (Black).
Herfamily were of a delicate constitution. (Bronte).
Similarvariants are observed in the lexemes committee, government, board, crew, etc.
Colourin the meaning «red, green, blue, etc». is a countable noun. In the meaning «appearanceof reality or truth» (e. g. His torn clothes gave colour to his story that liehad been attacked by robbers. A. Horney.) it has no plural opposite and belongsto the singularia tantum. Colours in the sense of «materials used by paintersand artists» has no singular opposite and belongs to the pluralia tantum.
Thus,the lexeme has three variants:
Sg. Pl.
1) colour colours
2) colour –
3) – colours.
Whengrammarians write that the lexical meanings of some plurals differ from thoseof their singular opposites [24], they simplycompare different variants of a lexeme.
Sometimesvariants of a lexeme may belong to the same lexico-grammatical subclass and yethave different forms of number opposemes.
Cf. brother (son of same parents) – brothers
brother(fellow member) – brethren
fish– fish (e.g. I caught five fish yesterday.)
fish– fishes ('different species', e. g. ocean fishes).
Acollective noun is a word that designates a group of objects or beings regardedas a whole, such as «flock», «team», or «corporation». Although many languagestreat collective nouns as singular, in others they may be interpreted asplural. In British English, phrases such as the committee are meeting arecommon (the so-called agreement in sensu «in meaning», that is, with themeaning of a noun, rather than with its form). The use of this type ofconstruction varies with dialect and level of formality.
Alllanguages are able to specify the quantity of referents. They may do so bylexical means with words such as English a few, some, one, two, five hundred.However, not every language has a grammatical category of number. Grammaticalnumber is expressed by morphological and/or syntactic means. That is, it isindicated by certain grammatical elements, such as through affixes or numberwords. Grammatical number may be thought of as the indication of semanticnumber through grammar.
Languagesthat express quantity only by lexical means lack a grammatical category ofnumber. For instance, in Khmer, neither nouns nor verbs carry any grammaticalinformation concerning number: such information can only be conveyed by lexicalitems such as khlah 'some', pii-bey 'a few', and so on.
Mostlanguages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. Themost widespread distinction, as found in English and many other languages,involves a simple two-way number contrast between singular and plural (car /cars; child / children, etc.). Other more elaborate systems of number aredescribed below.
Conclusion
In the conclusion of my work, I would like to say some wordsaccording the done investigation.
The main part of my work consists of following items:
· «What is Noun»?, as it is seen from the title in this partI gave the definition to the term noun.
· «Semantical Characteristics of Nouns» In this chapter Icharacterized English nouns from due their semantical meaning.
· «Category of Case» in this paragraph I described the categoryof case of English nouns
· «Category of Number». In this part I gave thedefinition to the category of number of English nouns, described differenttypes of numbers of nouns in English
Standing on such ground I will add that investigation in thequestions dealt with English adjectives is not finished yet, so we willcontinue it while writing our qualification work.
I hope that my course paper will arise the sincere interestof students and teachers to the problem of adjectives in contemporary English.
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