The NOUN

1. The NOUN 1General characteristics and classification 2 Grammatical categories 3 Combinability and functions in the sentence

2. CRITERIA for the devision of words into parts of speech: Semantic(meaning) Formal(form) derivational features a set of gram. categories Functionalfunction in the sentence (function) combinability

3. Semantic features (meaning) The noun is main nominative part of speech expressing substanceby 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).

4. Formal criterion: derivational features • Typical stem-building morphemes: Dent-ist, teach-er, friend-ship, develop-ment, lion-ess, secur-ity, ag-ism, address-eeetc. • Stem-structure: Simple derivative composite compound

5. 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)

6. 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 (aday), some pronouns (myfriend ), most adjectives (goodrelations ), numerals (two visitors ). With prepositions nouns have both left-hand and right- hand connections ( toMoscow, a friend of mine)

7. The problem of the N+N construction A. I. Smirnitsky and O. S. Akhmanova regardthese 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.

8. 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.

9. Classification From the grammatical point of view • countablesand 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: • declinablesand indeclinables(with regard to the category of case) Declinables take the form of the ????

10. 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),

11. 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 (singulariatantum) – plural only (pluraliatantum): snow, joy -police, trousers.

12. 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

13. The main theories: 1) The limited case theory 2) The positional case theory 3) The prepositional case theory 4) There is NO CASEin English Other approaches: • Apostrophe is a punctuation mark • ‘S + N is an analytical form of the noun

14. The category of gender • Gender does not find any morphological expression in English!!! • The distinction of male, femaleand neutercan 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).

15. 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.

16. What language level does the article belong to? • The article is a WORD “A stone” is a phrase (a word-combination) “A” is a determiner/article (a functional part of speech) • The article is A WORD-MORPHEME “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)

17. Arguments • 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. • The role of a determiner is to specify the range of reference to the noun by making it definite or indefinite. • 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. • 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

18. How many articles are there in English? • Two - Definite article - Indefinite article Three (a,the and a Zero-article ) • Definite article • indefinitearticle • 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”.