Theme 7. The noun: general. The category of number

Plan

1. The noun. Definition.
2. Typical features of the noun as part of speech:

a) Lexico-grammatical meaning.

b) The typical stem-building suffixes; the grammatical categories of number and case.

c) Combinability.

d) Syntactical functions of the noun in the sentence.

1. The classifications of the nouns.
2. The category of number.

In traditional grammar, nouns are defined notionally as ‘the name of a person, place, or thing’: e.g. The sun rises in the East. The trees became bare. But this definition only partly works: abstract nouns like criticism or tolerance are hardly things, and it is syntax, not meaning, that decides that think is a verb in one sentence (e.g. I must think) and a noun in another (e.g. I’ll have a think). Modern grammarians therefore prefer more formal, syntactical definitions:

A word other than a pronoun that belongs to the word-class, that inflects for the plural, and that can function as subject or object in a sentence, can be preceded by articles and adjectives, and can be the object of a preposition. (The Oxford Dictionary of Grammar)

It is a part of speech characterized by the 5 following features:

1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of “substance”.

2. The grammatical categories of Number and Case.

3. Typical stem-building morphemes such as:

-ist Marxist, communist, materialist, realist, novelist, linguist, physicist (Greek via Roman);

-er worker, listener, writer, sleeper, Londoner, Southerner;

-ite Luddite, Absenite, anchorite, graphite, nitrite (Greek via Roman);

-ship friendship, hardship (Germanic);

-ment fulfillment, betterment, management, oddments etc. (Roman)

4. Left-hand connections with articles, prepositions, adjectives, possessive pronouns, other nouns.

5. The functions of subject, complement and other parts of the sentence.

As regards the category of Case and Number,

the noun has subclasses:

Countables / Uncountables (with regard to the category of Number)

Declinables / Undeclinables (with regard to the category of Case)

This is a grammatical morphological classification. All other classifications are rather semantical than grammatical:

abstract / concrete (with regard to the properties of the things they denote, not the properties

of words)

e.g. The abstract noun smile doesn’t differ from the concrete noun book in its paradigm.

Nouns refer to things (ship), substances (coffee), beings (John, boy), phenomena (rain) and abstract concepts (time, peace).

Firstly, nouns are used to refer to and denote concrete objects (things, substances, beings): e.g. book, coffee, boy, John, army. Secondly, nouns are used to refer to and denote abstract concepts: nonsense, peace, anger, law, etc. Closely connected with the denotation of concrete objects and abstract notions is the fact that nouns refer to dimensions in space and time. This means that nouns may be qualified and quantified according to their dimensions. Concrete nouns denote objects which, by nature, have dimension as described above.

Abstract nouns, however, denote conceptions which are without such clear-cut dimension; reference to them is made as if they had dimension, and this kind of dimensional reference also facilitates the qualification and quantification of abstract entities.

John has many new books and impressive material on pre-historic animals (the underlined nouns are concrete and have spatio-temporal dimension, they are accordingly qualified and quantified by determiner and nominal modifier).

John has many new ideas and impressive knowledge about ancient history (the underlined nouns are abstract and have no clear-cut dimension in space and time, but they are looked upon as having such dimension, as can be seen in the use of determiner and nominal modifier which qualify and quantify them as if they had dimension).

Taking the two groups of concrete and abstract nouns together, the following can be stated about the basic meaning of the noun as a word-class:

The invariant categorial meaning of the noun is substantiality having spatio-temporal dimension.

The categorial meaning is inherent in all nouns and implies that nouns can be qualified (a book – a good book). In addition to this, nouns have further characteristics according to their specific uses.

Nouns can be used as

(1) proper nouns: names of individuals, unique persons (Ronnie, Smith), geographical and place-names (Europe, the Alps, London), names of institutions (United Nations Organization)

(2) common nouns, i.e. denotations of things, substances, beings, phenomena in general: book, ship, sugar, man, smith, army, rain. There is no strict line of division between proper and common. As a matter of fact, nouns are frequently used as both in keeping with communicative requirements:

CommonProper

a smith Mr. Smith

the lion The Lion (pub name)

He is a new Hemingway Hemingway

of his country (family name)

(synonym for a famous writer)

The quantification of nouns can be done in two ways, depending on the countability (Count) or noncountability (Noncount) of nouns:

CountNoncount

one book much fun

three books little fun

many books a bit of fun

few books

There is no clear-cut distinction between countable and noncountable nouns as many nouns can be used as both Count and Noncount, according to communicative requirements:

egg

e.g. I bought a dozen eggs.

There is some egg on your tie.

________________________________

*It’s advisable to refer the students to В. Н. Жигадло, И. П. Иванова, Л. Л. Иофик. Современный английский язык. Теоретический курс грамматики: Учебник. – М., ИЛИЯ, 1956, стр. 21-22.

difficulty

the numerous difficulties of the English grammar

He achieved the results with some difficulty.

John

John has come home.

There are three Johns in our class.

The characterization of nouns as Count or Noncount is closely linked with the reference they make either to classes of (articulate, Count) objects (= class-nouns: boy, tree) or to (non-articulate, Noncount) substance or “masses” (= mass nouns: luggage, toast).

Nouns can further be used to denote groups of objects (= collective nouns: crowd, army, family).

The Category of Number

The grammatical category of number defines a set of word forms (Sg/Pl) which has one common categorial function, that of the Sg/Pl distinction.

Formally, number serves to bring about concord. Semantically, number expresses the propositional content and actualizes nouns in communication by providing a quantification.

e.g. book : books

difficulty : difficulties

The “Pluria Tantum” and other nouns are Noncount because they have only one form. The singular : plural distinction can also be brought about by other means:

e.g. furniture : a piece of furniture

two pieces

scissors : a pair of scissors

When nouns refer to substances, number distinguishes between a given substance and sorts of the same substances:

e.g. steel : stainless and other steels

oil : refined and unrefined oils

butter : salted and unsalted butters

wine : sweet and dry wines

Number is a comprehensive grammatical means of realizing concord. As to the quantitative actualization of nouns, it is restricted to countable nouns, and is not comprehensive, but rather partly contradictory, and not the sole means of bringing about such actualization.

Animate / inanimate and sex distinction

Historical development is responsible for the fact that English has only few lexical means to express gender (word-formation: actor – actress, boyfriend - girlfriend).

The absence of gender is one of the marked differences between English and, say, German and Russian where gender distinction is primarily made either by the article (German: der Tisch, die Lampe, das Fenster) or morphological indication (Russia: стол, лампа, окно).

The English noun only makes a semantic distinction between animate/inanimate and between the sexes (male/female), and this is expressed by pronouns and possessive determiners.

The distinction is only expressed by pronouns where the singular is concerned (“he, she, it”; “it”, however, does not denote sex); in the plural even this disappears (they).

AM. Maggie, the dark girl,… had been with me for over five years now: she was clever to just short of the point of being brilliant. (animate; sex distinction expressed: female)

Jimmy Duclos. My first thought was that he must have considered his information to be of a vital and urgent nature. (animate; sex distinction expressed: male)

The probable content of the message I did not concern myself with: I’d know it in five minutes. (inanimate; no sex distinction)

According to their word-form characteristics, words can be grouped in various classes overlapping with each other. They may be described by means of distinctive features (features distinguishing them but not common to them).

References:

1. Александрова О. В. Современный английский язык: Морфология и синтаксис. = Modern English Grammar: Morphology and Syntax: учебное пособие. / О. В. Александрова, Т. А. Комова. – М.: ИЦ Академия, 2007. – С. 77-82; 83-84.

2. Бархударов Л. С. Очерки по морфологии современного английского языка. / Л. С. Бархударов – М.: Высшая школа, 1975. – С. 71-96.

3. Блох М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка: учебник. / М. Я. Блох. – М.: Высш. шк., 2003. – С. 64-69.

4. Иванова И. П., Бурлакова В. В., Почепцов Г. Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка: Учебник. / И. П. Иванова, В. В. Бурлакова, Г. Г. Почепцов. – М.: Высш. шк., 1981. – С. 21-23.

5. Ильиш Б. А. Строй современного английского языка (Теоретический курс): Учеб. пособие. – М. –Л.: Просвещение, 1965. – С. 36-63.

6. Chalker, S. Weiner E. The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. / S. Chalker, E. Weiner. – N.Y.: Oxford University Press. – P. 266.