Grammar is the subject, which studies the rules by which words and their forms are combined into sentences. English practical grammar consists of two main parts: morphology and syntax. The subject matter of morphology is words, parts of speech. The subject matter of syntax is a sentence, its structure and types. Our special interest this time is the first part of grammar - morphology.
According to their meaning, morphological characteristics and syntactical functions, words fall under certain classes called parts of speech.
We distinguish between notional and structural parts of speech. The notional parts of speech perform certain functions in the sentence: the function of subject, predicate, attribute, object, and adverbial modifier.
The notional parts of speech are:
- the noun;
- the adjective;
- the pronoun;
- the numeral;
- the verb;
- the adverb;
- the words of the category of state (statives);
- the modal words;
- the interjection.
The structural parts of speech either express relations between words or sentences or emphasize the meaning of words or sentences. They never perform any independent function in the sentence.
Here belong:
- the preposition;
- the conjunction;
- the particle;
- the article.
Chapter I. The Noun
Definition
The Noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word. In the concept of substance, we include living beings (E.g. a man, a woman, and a bird), lifeless things (E.g. a table, a book), and names of abstract notions: qualities, states, actions. (E.g. Love, fear, conversation).
Formation of Nouns
Noun-forming suffixes
| Productive | unproductive | ||
| -er -ist -ness -ism -ess -(a)ion -tion -sion | Reader Dramatist Madness Socialism Actress Suspicion Formation Admission (-ess is practically only the gender-forming suffix, expressing feminine gender) | -hood -dom -ship -ment -ance -ence -ty -ity -ure -age | Childhood Freedom Friendship Development Importance Dependence Generosity Cruelty Culture Marriage |
The most common prefixes
re- reconstruction
co- co-author
dis- disarmament
mis- misunderstanding
over- overestimation
under- under-secretary
sub- subdivision
inter- interaction
Morphological composition of Nouns
All the nouns can be divided into:
- simple nouns which have neither prefixes nor suffixes; they are indecomposable. (E.g. book, table, practice.);
- derivative nouns which have derivative elements (suffix-read er, prefix- in experience)
- compound nouns which are built from two or more stems. The meaning of a compound often differs from the meanings of its elements. The main types of compound nouns are as follows:
- noun-stem+ noun-stem: (E.g. apple tree, snowball);
- adjective-stem+ noun-stem: (E.g. bluebell, blackbird);
- verb-stem+ noun-stem (E.g. pickpocket).
Classification of Nouns
Nouns fall under two classes: proper nounsand common nouns.
1. Proper nouns are individual names given to separate persons or things (E.g. Shakespeare, Peter, London, February, and Monday).
2. Common nouns are names that can be applied to any individual of a class of persons or things (class nouns): (E.g. man, dog, book; collections of similar individuals or things regarded as a single unit (collective nouns):E.g. peasantry, family; materials (nouns of material): E.g. snow, iron, cotton; or abstract notions (abstract nouns): kindness, development.
3. Collective nouns fall under:
- Nouns used only in singular: foliage, machinery, team, crew.
- Nouns, which are singular in form but plural in meaning “nouns of multitude”: police, cattle, people, gentry.
- Nouns that can be both singular and plural: crowd-crowds, fleet-fleets, nation-nations, family-families.
Collective nouns are usually singular and are used with singular verbs, when they denote a thing as a whole. However, sometimes a plural verb is used, when it denotes a number of people or elements. (E.g. The Russian team was playing well).
Some collective nouns have singular and plural form (E.g. My family is small. My family are very friendly people).
Nouns of material are uncountable and are generally used in the singular. They are used in the plural to denote different sorts or portions of a given material. (E.g. wine-wines; fruit-fruits; glass-glasses; ice-ices). (E.g. tea, sugar, gold, silver; two teas, two ice-creams.)
4. Abstract nouns are usually uncountable though some of them may be countable. (E.g. idea, hour). However, they may change their meaning and become class nouns. In this case they are used with the article and may be plural. (E.g. beauty-a beauty-beauties; sight-a sight-sights).
Nouns can be countable, that denote things that can be counted (E.g. a book-5books); and uncountable, that denote things we can’t count; they have no plural; we can’t use a/an before them (E.g. the music, some bread, his blood, much excitement).
Many nouns can be used as countable and uncountable nouns. Usually there is a difference in meaning. (E.g., I bought a paper- a newspaper-countable; there’s a hair in my soup-one single hair-countable; we had many interesting experiences during our holiday-things that happened to us-countable).
Some nouns are usually uncountable in English but often countable in other languages. They are always used in singular. Here are the most important of these:
Accommodation, advice, baggage, luggage, behavior, bread, chaos, furniture, money, information, research, knowledge, ink, cream, yeast, hair news, permission, progress, scenery, traffic, travel, trouble, weather, work, classics, linguistics, mathematics, phonetics, athletics, ceramics, gymnastics, politics, tactics, means, gallows. (Note: the following nouns, ending in –s, can be singular and plural; a means of transport-many means, a television series-two series, a species of bird-ten species.). Some diseases: measles-корь, mumps-свинка, rickets-рахит, shingles-краснуха. Some games: billiards, bowls, dominoes, drafts. (when used attributively, no plural). ( E.g. a billiard table. ). Some proper nouns: Algiers, Athens, Brussels, Naples, Wales, the United Nations, and the United States. (E.g., the United States is popular all over the world.).
There are a number of invariable nouns, which are uncountable and are used in plural. These nouns are rather numerous. Semantically they fall into several groups:
- Names of tools or articles of dress consisting of two equal parts, which are joined:
Bellows-мехи кузнечные, binoculars, breeches, braces-подтяжки, glasses, pants, pajamas, scales, scissors, shorts, spectacles, tongs, trousers, fetters.
- Miscellaneous nouns: antics, archives, arms, ashes, contents, customs (таможенная пошлина), earnings, goods, greens, outskirts, troops, wages, the Middle Ages, whereabouts-приблизительное местоположение, sweepings, clothes, odds, premises, traffic-lights.
- The proper nouns: the East Indies, the West Indies, the Hebrides, the Highlands, the Midlands, the Netherlands.
- Collective nouns: potatoes, onions, carrots, oats, crops, looks, (E.g. Potatoes are very cheap in autumn.).
In English the nouns gate, sledge, watch, and clock are used in both singular and plural (E.g. the gate is open. The gates are open).
The Category of Number
English countable nouns have two numbers: the singular and the plural.
