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We used various references to investigate the noun. In our course work we had investigated the similarities and differences of grammatical categories of noun in English and in Russian languages. Russian language as English distinguishes two numbers and the meaning of singular and plural seems to be self-explanatory.
The classification of nouns in these two languages is similar; there are two classes: proper nouns and common nouns, but in English this classification is narrowed (class nouns, collective noun, nouns of material, abstract nouns).
Cases are something that is probably the most complicated concept in Russian language to the student that speaks only English. Old English had cases, but in contemporary English language you can notice cases and declension mostly in personal pronouns. The question about category of case in English for nowadays has discussion character. It depends on approach which author uses in this problem; to English language was given different numbers of cases. M. Deibchain assumed understanding of case as combination of preposition with noun in initial 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 as case 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 that all nouns in English are divided into two classes: words denote unanimated things, which have not the category of case; and words that denote animated things and time, which have two cases- nominative and possessive. If we recognize 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 new grammatical category called genitive category, which represented by morpheme -’s.
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So the analysis of this similarities and differences in these two languages will help teachers to teach grammar by comparing English with their mother tongue (Russian) or vice versa.
preposition noun language semantic
Bibliography
1. Beard, R. (1992). Number. In W. Bright (ed.) International Encyclopedia of
2. Corbett, G. (2000). Number. Cambridge University Press.
3. Deutschbein. M. System der neuenglischen Syntax, 1928; G. Сurme. A Grammar of the English Language. London-New York, 1931.
4. Francis. W. N. The Structure of American English. 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 English Sentences. London, 1963, pp. 62-63, pp. 94—100.
6. Illyish B. The structure of Modern English M.- L. 1965
7. Laycock, Henry. (2005) 'Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns' Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
8. Laycock, Henry. (2006) Words without Objects. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. London, 1933.
9. Other advanced books and detailed studies on this specialised topic are: В. М. Жирмунский. Об аналитических конструкциях. В сб.: "Аналитические конструкции в языках различных типов". М.— Л.. 1965;
10. Rayevska N.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 with reference 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 on the universality of semantics." Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting 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;
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20. Ярцева. Проблема парадигмы в языке аналитического строя. В сб.: "Вопросы германского языкознания". M.— Л., 1961, p. 229;
21. Ярцева. B. H. Историческая морфология английского языка. M.— Л., 1960;
22. Ярцева В. H.. Исторический синтаксис английского языка. М.— Л., 1961;
23. www. answers.com/topic/agreement –linguistics
24. www.alpha.com /rusgrammar/time.
Literary work
1. Bronte, E. "Jane Eyre",
2. Frank Herbert "Dune"
3. Galsworthy "Saga of Forsytes"
4. Holt Tom "Who is afraid of Beowulf"
5. Michael Judith "A Certain Smile",
6. Rice Anna "Savant of bones"
7. Shakespeare William, "The remarkable rocket".
8. Tolkien J.R.R. "The return of thinking"
9. Брюсов, Сочинение в двух томах. Том 1
10. Лермонтов "Русская литература"
11. Пушкин А.С. Сочинение в трех томах. Том 2
12. Тютчев "Изучение лирики в школе"
13. Фет "Русская литература"
Appendix
Oppositional relations 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 | |
Collective Nouns, Company Names, Family Names, Sports Teams
There are, further, so called collective nouns, which are singular when we think of them as 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 can be Countable and Uncountable
Sometimes, the same 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! |
Uncountable Nouns
Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot "count" them. For example, we cannot count "milk". We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we cannot count "milk" itself. Here are some more uncountable nouns:
Countable Nouns
Countable nouns 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. They are 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 |
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There are some plurals 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 plays a great role in the person’s speech, as it expresses speaker’s attitudes to actions of other people. In our diploma paper we analyzed modality as expressions of social power, morphological and semantic features of modal verbs as they express modality.
We have proposed to view the core meanings of the modal verbs as determined by the power structure of the speech act situation where they are used. We have found that the different participants’ expectations about each other’s attitudes combined with the social power structure largely determine the usage, and there by the semantics of modals. Our general semantic approach should, however, be applicable to all languages with modal verbs.
Modal verbs take a special place in grammar, but they are also examined by semantic science. That’s why disagreement appeared between grammar and semantic sciences. Now modal verbs are the subject of grammar, which consider not only the structural characteristics, but also studies semantic loading of modal verbs.
The category of modal verbs include request, order, imperative, command, approval, disapproval, reproach, an opportunity, skill, a duty, a prediction, the assumption 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 verbs have no form of future time, they have the equivalents among nominal verbs. In this connection, equivalents of modal verbs in our work have involved in the separate semantic analysis.
Drawing conclusion of our work, we can tell, that each modal verb and its equivalents have several values. These values frequently coincide with values of other modal verbs, but have the own special characteristic, each of characteristics proves to be true from examples in colloquial and literary speech.
