General characteristics of the noun

 

The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical categories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).

Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:

1. According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common.

2. According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human.

3. According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and uncountable.

 

This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the different principles of classification.

Morphological features of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived (stem + affix, affix + stem – thingness); compound (stem+ stem – armchair) and composite (the Hague). The noun has morphological categories of number and case. Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.

Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used in the sentence in all syntactic functions but predicate. Speaking about noun combinability, we can say that it can go into right-hand and left-hand connections with practically all parts of speech. That is why practically all parts of speech but the verb can act as noun determiners. However, the most common noun determiners are considered to be articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and nouns themselves in the common and genitive case.

 

The category of number.

 

The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form and the singular form. The category of number in English is restricted in its realization because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only within subclass of countable nouns.

The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one object while the plural form may be used to denote one object consisting of several parts. The singular form may denote:

1. oneness (individual separate object – a cat);

2. generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic animal);

3. indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness - money, milk).

 

The plural form may denote:

1. the existence of several objects (cats);

2. the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность, pluralia tantum, jeans).

 

To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups.

1. The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed: cat-cats.

2. The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context. There are two groups here:

1) Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns.

2) Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.

 

3. The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass.