Understanding the Noun: Characteristics, Classification, and Functions
The noun is a fundamental part of speech expressing various concepts such as names of objects, living beings, places, materials, processes, and more. It is characterized by semantic features, formal criteria including derivational features, grammatical categories like number and gender, and combinability with other elements in a sentence. The issue of N+N construction is explored, defining noun-stems and their relationship with adjectives.
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The NOUN 1 General characteristics and classification 2 Grammatical categories 3 Combinability and functions in the sentence
CRITERIA for the devision of words into parts of speech: Semantic (meaning) Formal (form) derivational features a set of gram. categories Functional (function) combinability function in the sentence
Semantic features (meaning) The noun is main nominative part of speech expressing substance by which we mean - names of lifeless things (tree, window), - living beings (woman, bird), - places (city, London, Belarus), - materials (gold, oil), - processes and states (life, growth, sleep, consciousness), - abstract notions (socialism, joy, evil, happiness) - qualities (kindness, courage).
Formal criterion: derivational features Typical stem-building morphemes: Dent-ist, teach-er, friend-ship, develop-ment, lion-ess, secur-ity, ag-ism, address-ee etc. Stem-structure: Simple derivative composite compound
Formal criterion: a set of grammmatical categories Number (friend-friends, tooth teeth, ox-oxen) Case (child children s, the USA theUSA s, friends friends ) Gender (widow widower, lion lioness, he-cat she-cat) Article determination (a book the book books, weather the weather, a deer the deer - deer)
Combinability depends on the lexical- grammatical meaning Nouns are associated with qualities (adjectives), their number and order (numerals), their actions (verbs ), relations (prepositions). Nouns have left-hand connections with articles (a day), some pronouns (my friend ), most adjectives (good relations ), numerals (two visitors ). With prepositions nouns have both left-hand and right- hand connections ( to Moscow, a friend of mine)
The problem of the N+N construction A. I. Smirnitsky and O. S. Akhmanova regard these units as a kind of unstable compounds easily developing into word-combinations. The first components, they say, are not nouns since: - they are not used in the plural (cf. a rose garden and a garden of roses). The first components are noun-stems convertible into adjectives (adjectivization) - Nouns are used as attributes only in the possessive case or with a preposition.
Functions in the sentence The most characteristic substantive functions of the noun are - the subject and the object in the sentence, Other syntactic functions, i.e. attributive e.g. adverbial e.g. predicative e.g. are not immediately characteristic of its substantive quality.
Classification From the grammatical point of view countables and uncountables (with regard to the category of number) Countable nouns can agree with the verb in the singular and in the plural; they can take the indefinite article, they are used with the indefinite pronouns many or (a) few: declinables and indeclinables (with regard to the category of case) Declinables take the form of the ????
Semantic classification proper common (week Sunday), abstract concrete collective (meaning table family), countable uncountable (days fruit), animate inanimate (dog sofa), personal - non-personal (The Smiths a human),
The category of number 1 it is accepted by all the scholars 2 It is expressed by the opposition of the plural form to the singular form of the noun: king- kings+ singular only (singularia tantum) plural only (pluralia tantum): snow, joy -police, trousers.
The category of case In English the only morphologically marked case admitted by many linguists is the Possessive case: dolphin dolphin's; Dickens Common and Genitive. The Common case has no inflection and its meaning is very general. The of + noun phrase is used with nouns denoting inanimate objects (a boy s leg - the leg of the table). The discussion of the case problem is still an open question
The main theories: 1) The limited case theory 2) The positional case theory 3) The prepositional case theory 4) There is NO CASE in English Other approaches: - Apostrophe is a punctuation mark - S + N is an analytical form of the noun
The category of gender Gender does not find any morphological expression in English!!! The distinction of male, female and neuter can be understood from - the lexical meaning (a man- a woman), - the use of personal pronouns he, she, it which replace the noun - the use of derivational suffixes (a waiter-waitress), - compounding (a she-crab soup), (a man-servant).
The category of article determination The problem of English articles is a long debated question. The most disputable aspects are the following: - the status of the article as a language unit; - the number of articles - categorical and pragmatic functions of the articles.
What language level does the article belong to? The article is The article is a WORD A WORD-MORPHEME A stone is a phrase (a word-combination) A is a determiner/article (a functional part of speech) A stone is an analytical form of the word storm ; the paradigm of the word stone consists of 4 words, they are ????? (write the paradigm)
Arguments 1) The position of the article can be occupied by other words: demonstrative and possessive pronouns, numerals, nouns in the possessive case etc. Words which have distribution similar to the article are called determiners. 2) The role of a determiner is to specify the range of reference to the noun by making it definite or indefinite. 3) The article plays an important role in structuring information. It is one of the means of distinguishing between facts already known the theme, and new information the rheme. The definite article is the marker of the theme and the indefinite article is the marker of the rheme. 1) The Russian word pyk means the plural of the word pyka in the genetive case. Similarly, the form children means the plural, common case, indefinite. There are no syntactic relations between, for ex. a and person in a person Continue the list, SEE THE CRITERIA for the definition of a word- morpheme 2) 3)
How many articles are there in English? Two - Definite article - Indefinite article Three (a, the and a Zero-article ) - Definite article - indefinite article - Zero-article, (often treated as the omission of the article or the absence of the article. The absence of the article is a special kind of article, which is termed zero article .
