Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language includes three constituent parts: the phonological system, the lexical system and the grammatical system.
The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it determines the material (phonetical) appearance of its significative units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of language, that is, words and stable word groups. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process [1, p. 5].
Each of the three constituent parts of language is studied by a particular linguistic discipline. The phonological description of language is effected by the science of phonology; the lexical description of language is effected by the science of lexicology; the grammatical description of language is effected by the science of grammar.
The term “grammar” originated from the ancient Greek word grammatiketechne, which meant “the craft to read and write letters”. But the original meaning of this term was lost in ancient times and it acquired a wider and deeper content – a science about a language structure. The aim of theoretical grammar of language is to present a theoretical description of its grammatical system, i.e. to scientifically analyze and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.
Theoretical English grammar consists of two parts: morphology and syntax. Morphology studies large classes of words, parts of speech, their morphemic structure, grammatical categories and paradigms in which they actually exist. Syntax is that part of grammar which studies the rules according to which words are connected in the sentences. It also studies various types of sentences, the relations between the components of the sentence called parts of the sentence – principal and secondary parts of the sentence.
The words of the language, depending on various formal and semantic features, are divided into grammatically relevant classes. The traditional grammatical classes of words are called “parts of speech”. The term “parts of speech” is purely traditional and conventional. This name was introduced in the grammatical teaching of Ancient Greece, where the concept of the sentence was not yet explicitly identified in distinction to the general idea of speech, and where consequently, no strict differentiation was drawn between the word as a vocabulary unit and the word as a functional element of the sentence.
In modern linguistics scholars concentrate their attention on morphological, word-making characteristics of words and also on their semantic and syntactical properties investigating the problem of part of speech classification. V.V.Vynogradov, for example, considered that the classification of words into parts of speech is determined by five factors: 1) differences of syntactical functions performed by different categories of words in utterances and in the structure of the sentence; 2) differences of morphological structure of words and of word forms; 3) differences of lexical meanings of words; 4) differences in the way of reflecting reality; 5) differences in the nature of grammatical categories which are characteristic of a certain part of speech.
From the point of view of V.L.Kaushanska and N.A.Kobrina words must be classified into parts of speech on the basis of three principles: 1) grammatical meaning common for a whole class of words (for example, substance for nouns; process for verbs); 2) morphological characteristics (for example, the number for nouns; the degrees of comparison for ajectives); 3) syntactical characteristics – combinability and syntactical functions of lexical units.
Thus, studying the problem of classification of parts of speech grammarians point out that parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of three criteria: semantic, formal and functional.
The semantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalized meaning, which is characteristic of all the subsets of word constituting a given part of speech. This meaning is understood as the categorical meaning of the part of speech. The formal criterion provides for the exposition of the specific morphological features of all the lexemic subsets of a part of speech.
The functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of words in the sentence typical of a part of speech. The three factors of categorical characterization of words are conventionally referred to as, respectively, “meaning”, “form” and “function”.
The modern principles of part of speech identification have been formulated as a result of research conducted by different scholars on the vast materials of numerous languages and the three-criteria characterization of parts of speech has been developed and applied to practice with the utmost consistency.
According to these criteria grammarians subdivided the whole of the English vocabulary into 12 parts of speech: nine of them are notional (самостійні) and three are functional words (службові), comparatively few in number, but used very frequently.
The notional parts of speech are: the noun, the verb, the adjective, the pronoun, the stative, the numeral, the adverb, the modal words, the interjection. The functional parts of speech are: the preposition, the conjunction, the participle.
Notional parts of speech have a full lexical meaning of their own and perform independent syntactic functions in the sentence – they serve either as principal or secondary parts of the sentence. Functional parts of speech differ from the notional parts of speech semantically – their lexical meaning is of the more general character than that of notional parts of speech. Functional parts of speech do not perform any independent syntactic functions but serve either to express various relations between the words in the sentence (e.g. the books are on the table; teachers and their pupils, etc.) or to specify the meaning of the word (e.g. He lives just round the corner; You only turn the handle, etc.).
The noun as a part of speech has the categorical meaning of “substance” or “thingness”. The word “noun” comes from the Latin nomen meaning “name”. The Noun names things (desk, pen, table), living beings (girl, dog, cat), places (mountain, hill, Paris, France), abstract notions (happiness, delight, love, knowledge), process (movement, advance, struggle, life), qualities (goodness, patience, cruelty, honesty, intelligence), states (depression, shock, bewilderment) and materials (silk, wool, leather, gold, sand, milk, tea).
According to the semantic principle all nouns are divided into: 1) proper nouns and 2) common nouns.
Proper nouns are names given to individuals of a class to distinguish them from other individuals of the same class. Proper nouns are: 1) names of individual persons; 2) geographical names; 3) names of the months and the days of the week; 4) names of ships, hotels, clubs; 5) names of buildings, streets, parks; 6) names of organizations, magazines and newspapers.
Common nouns are names applied to any individual of a class of living beings or things (a woman, a table), materials (snow, oil) or abstract notions (beauty, truth, wealth, advice). Common nouns are subdivided into four groups: 1) class nouns, 2) collective nouns, 3) nouns of material and 4) abstract nouns.
1. Class nouns indicate persons or things belonging to a class, such as a doctor, a driver, a flower, a tree.
2. Collective nouns denote a number of similar individuals or things collected together so that they may be regarded as a single object (team, family, government, company; cattle, poultry, police; linen, leafage, money; clothes, belongings, goods, tidings, clothes).
3. Nouns of material denote material. They do not express separate thing but the whole mass of matter: oil, gasoline, butter, cheese, silver, cotton, wood, salt.
4. Abstract nouns are the names of actions, states or qualities: pride, health, music, desire, fun, work, idea, fight, walk.
According to their morphological composition nouns can be divided into simple, derived and compound.
Simple nouns are nouns which contain in their structure only one root-morpheme (cap, bed, pen, cat, girl, boy). Derived nouns are nouns which consist of a root-morpheme and one or more derivational prefixes or suffixes (reader, taxist, childhood, freedom, kindness, decoration, movement, helplessness, misunderstanding, visitor, truthfulness). Compound nouns are nouns which consist of two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms. In a compound noun the immediate constituents obtain integrity and structural cohesion that makes them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit (armchair, bedroom, toothbrush, seaman, window-shop, greenhouse, early-riser, cinema-goer, mother-in-law, forget-me-not).
English nouns have two grammatical categories – the category of number and the category of case. The most general notions reflecting the most general properties of phenomena are referred to in logic as “categorical notions” or “categories”. The most general meanings rendered by language and expressed big systemic correlations of word-forms are interpreted in linguistic as categorical grammatical meanings. The forms themselves are identified within definite paradigmatic series [1, p. 27].
The categorical meaning (e.g. the grammatical number) unites the individual meanings of the correlative paradigmatic forms (e.g. singular – plural) and is exposed throught them. The grammatical category itself presents a unity of form (i.e. material factor) and meaning (i.e. ideal factor) and constitutes a certain signemic system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. The paradigmatic correlations of grammatical forms in a category are expressed by the so-called “grammatical oppositions”. For example, the meanings of the common case and the possessive case are united into the category of case; the meanings of separate tense forms are united into the category of tense). Thus, the grammatical category is the whole set of homogenous grammatical meanings.
The category of number of English nouns is the system of opposemes (such as student – students, tooth – teeth) which shows whether the noun stands for one object or more than one, in other words whether its grammatical meaning is “oneness” or “more than oneness” of objects. The connection of the category with the world of material reality, though indirect, is quite transparent. Its meanings reflect the existence of individual objects and groups of objects in the material world [9, p. 55].
All number opposemes are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings of ‘singular’ and ‘plural’ united by the general meaning of the category, that of ‘number’. But there is a considerable variety of form in number opposemes, though it is not so great as in the Ukrainian language.
An English noun lexeme can contain two number opposemes at most (boy – boys, boy’s – boys’). Many lexemes have but one opposeme (table – tables) and many others have no opposemes at all (ink, news, advice, money).
In the opposeme boy – boys ‘singularity’ is expressed by a zero morpheme and ‘plurality’ is marked by the positive morpheme /-z/, in spelling -.s. In other words, the ‘singular’ member of the opposeme is not marked, and the ‘plural’ member is marked.
In the opposeme boy’s – boys’ both members have positive morphemes -’s, -s’, but these morphemes can be distinguished only in writing. In the spoken language their forms do not differ, so with regard to each other they are unmarked. They can be distinguished only by their combinability (cf. a boy’s bag – boys’ bags).
In a few noun lexemes of foreign origin both members of a number opposeme are marked, e.g. symposium – symposia, datum – data, phenomenon – phenomena, etc. But in the process of assimilation this peculiarity of foreign nouns gets gradually lost, and instead of medium – media a new opposeme develops, medium – mediums; instead of formula – formulae, the usual form now is formula – formulas. In this process, as we see, the foreign grammatical morphemes are neglected as such. The ‘plural’ morpheme is dropped altogether. The ‘singular’ morpheme becomes part of the stem. Finally, the regular -s ending is added to form the ‘plural’ opposite. As a result the ‘singular’ becomes unmarked, as typical of English, and the ‘plural’ gets its usual mark, the suffix -s. Since the ‘singular’ member of a number opposeme is not marked, the form of the opposeme is, as a rule, determined by the form of the ‘plural’ morpheme, which, in its turn, depends upon the stem of the lexeme.
In the overwhelming majority of cases the form of the ‘plural’ morpheme is /s/, /z/ or /iz/, in spelling -(e)s, e.g. caps, toys, dresses. With the stem ox- the form of the ‘plural’ morpheme is -en /-n/. In the opposeme man – men the form of the ‘plural’ morpheme is the vowel change /æ>e/. In woman – women ii is /u > i/, in foot – feet it is /u – i:/, etc. In child – children the form of the ‘plural’ morpheme is complicated. It consists of the vowel change /ai > i/ and the suffix -ren. In sheep – sheep the ‘plural’ is not marked, thus coinciding in form with the ‘singular’. They can be distinguished only by their combinability: one sheep, five sheep, a sheep was..., sheep were..., this sheep, these sheep. The ‘plural’ coincides in form with the ‘singular’ also in deer, fish, carp, trout, cod, salmon, etc.
With regard to the category of number, English nouns fall into two subclasses: countables and uncountables. The former have number opposites, the latter have not. Uncountable nouns are again subdivided into those having no plural opposites and those having no singular opposites.
Nouns like milk, sand, happiness, knowledge having no plural opposites are usually called by a Latin name – singularia tantum. Nouns like outskirts, clothes, goods having no singular opposites are known as pluralia tantum.
When combinability and form contradict each other, combinability is decisive, which accounts for the fact that ‘ police ’ or ‘ cattle ’ are regarded as plurals, and ‘ measles ’, ‘ mathematics ’ as singulars.
The lexico-grammatical meaning of a class (or of a subclass) of words is an abstraction from the lexical meanings of the words of the class, and depends to a certain extent on those lexical meanings. Therefore singularia tantum usually include nouns of certain lexical meanings. They are mostly material, abstract and collective nouns, such as salt, butter, tea, gold, love, patience, humanity, peasantry, linen, police.
There are some nouns in English which are used only in the plural. With these nouns the plural does not indicate several objects but denotes a composite whole. The Latin term “ pluralia tantum ” is applied to such nouns. To the group of pluralia tantum belong: 1) the names of things which consist of two similar halves: scales, spectacles, eye-glasses, tongs, trousers, scissors; 2) nouns which have collective meaning (concrete: stairs, goods, slums, outskirts, tropics, preserves, sweepings, clothes or abstract: holidays, earnings, contents, wages, goings-on, tidings); 3) invariable unmarked plurals: people, police, cattle, clergy, gentry, vermin, poultry.
Thus, the English language specifies the guantity of referents in two ways – by lexical means (with the help of such words as a few, some, one, two, five hundred) and with the help of the grammatical category of number, which expressed morphologically, i.e. it is indicated by certain grammatical elements such as suffixes and inflexions. Grammatical number may be thought of as the indication of semantic number thought grammar.
The category of case nouns is the system of opposemes (such as girl – girl’s in English, книга, книги, книзі, книгою in Ukrainian) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns names to other substances, actions, states, etc. in the world of reality. In the sentence ‘ I look John’s hat by mistake ’ the case of the noun John’s shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some reflection to the relations between John and his hat in reality.
Case is one of those categories which show the close connection: 1) between language and speech; 2) between morphology and syntax.
A case opposeme is, like any other opposeme, a unit of the language system, but the essential difference between the members of the case opposeme is in their combinability in speech.
We can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of meaning as a matter of combinability. The members of the case opposeme John – John’s are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmatic differences.
Though case is a morphological category, it has a distinct syntactical significance. The common case grammemes fulfill a number of syntactical functions not typical of possessive case grammemes, among them the functions of subject and object. The possessive case noun is for the most part employed as an attribute.
All case opposemes are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings, of ‘common’ case and ‘possessive’ case, united by the general meaning of the category – the category of ‘case’. There is not much variety in the form of case opposemes either, which distinguishes English from Ukrainian.
An English noun lexeme may contain two case opposemes at most (man –man’s, men – men’s). Some lexemes have but one opposeme (England – England’s, cattle – cattle’s). Many lexemes have no case opposemes at all (book, news, foliage).
In the opposeme dog – dog’s, men – men’s, the ‘common’ case is not marked, i.e. dog and men have zero morphemes of ‘common case’. The ‘possessive’ case is marked by the suffix -’s /-s, -z, -iz/. In the opposeme dogs – dogs’ the difference between the opposites is marked only in writing. Otherwise the two opposites do not differ in form. So with regard to each other they are not marked.
Thus, -’s is the only positive case morpheme of English nouns. It would be no exaggeration to say that the whole category depends on this morpheme.
With regard to the category of case English nouns fall under two lexico-grammatical subclasses: declinables, having case opposites, and indeclinables, having no case opposites.
As a general rule, the possessive case is used with the nouns denoting living beings (a girl’s hat, Helen’s jacket, her friend’s plans, the cat’s tail). The number of inanimate nouns which can be used in the possessive case is limited. Here belong: 1) nouns denoting time, distance and measure (a moment’s silence, an hour’s walk, a few days’ voyage, a two months’ leave, a mile’s distance, a shillings worth); 2) nouns denoting the names of newspapers and different kinds of organizations (the Daily Worker’s editorial, the United Nations Organization’s contribution to the cause of peace, this firm’s goods); 3) nouns denoting planets: the earth, the sun, the moon (the sun’s energy, the moon’s light, the earth’s natural resources); 4) nouns denoting the names of countries and towns (London’s historical places, Poltava’s parks and gardens, Latin America’s people, Ukraine’s economic development); 5) the nouns town, city, country, river, wind, water, ocean, world, nation (the city’s educational establishments, the country’s economy, the river’s bank, the wind’s rustle, the water’s edge); 6) the nouns vessel, boat, ship, car (the vessel’s desk, the ship’s course, the boat’s trail).
A noun in the possessive case generally precedes another noun which is its head-word. The relations between the noun in the genitive case and its head-word may be of two kinds.
1. The noun in the possessive case may denote a particular person or thing, as in my sister’s room, the man’s voice. This kind of the possessive case is called the specifying genitive. The specifying genitive may indicate the owner of a thing (e.g. my aunt’s car), the doer of the action (e.g. the minister’s speech), the bearer of a state (e.g. my friend’s illness).
2. The noun in the genitive case may refer to a whole class of similar objects. This kind of the possessive case is called the classifying genitive, e.g. sheep’s eyes (which means eyes of a certain kind but not the eyes of a particular sheep), a doctor’s degree, a soldier’s uniform, a doll’s face, lady’s wear, etc.
In some cases such combinations have become set phrases, e.g. a spider’s web, the bee’s sting, a fool’s errand, a cat’s paw, the serpent’s tooth and others. The classifying genitive is normally not replaced by an off-phrase.
The suffix -s may be added not only to a single noun but to a whole group of words. It is called the group genitive. The use of the group genitive is possible in those cases when the words in the group from a close sense unit (e.g. Smith and Broun’s office, Jack and Ann’s children, the Prince of Denmark’s tragedy, the Prime Minister of England’s residence).
A noun in the possessive case may be used without a head-word. This is called the independentgenitive. The independent genitive is used with nouns denoting trade or relationship or with proper names. It serves to denote places where business is conducted (e.g. at the greengrocer’s, at the butcher’s, at the baker’s, at the chemist’s), places of residence (e.g. at her aunt’s, at my son’s) or names of churches or palaces (at St. Paul’s, at St. James’s).
The category of gender. In Modern English there is no grammatical gender. The noun does not possess any special gender forms, neither does the accompanying adjective, pronoun or article indicate any gender agreement with the head-noun: a little boy, a little girl, a little room [2, p. 40].
What is traditionally called gender in English is a division of nouns into three classes according to their lexical meaning: masculine (referred to as he) – names of male beings: e.g. husband, brother, man, boy, cock; feminine (referred to as she) – names of female beings: e.g. mother, sister, girl, woman, cow, hen; neuter (referred to as it) – names of lifeless things and abstract notions: e.g. window, bag, chair, house, car, happiness, joy, progress, knowledge, peace. Thus, thecategory of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person singular, i.e. lexically. Personal pronouns serve as specific gender classifiers of nouns, being potentially reflected on each entry of the noun in speech.
In Ukrainian the category of gender is a grammatical division of nouns into three classes: masculine, feminine and neuter shown by the form of the noun itself: стіл (masculine), книга (feminine), вікно (neuter). Nouns denoting living beings refer to the masculine or feminine gender according to the natural sex distinctions. Names of things and abstract notions may refer to all three genders: neuter, masculine or feminine. When they belong to the masculine or feminine gender, the indication of gender is merely formal (grammatical) without any reference to actual sex distinctions.
English nouns can show the sex of their referents lexically, either by means of being combined with certain notional words used as sex indicators, or else by suffixal derivation. For example, boy-friend, girl-friend; woman-journalist, man-journalist; man-doctor, woman-doctor; he-wolf, she-wolf; he-cat, she-cat; landlord, landlady; actor, actress, lion, lioness; waiter, waitress; male-elephant, female-elephant; cock-sparrow, hen-sparrow; man-servant, maid-servant. Sometimes proper nouns are used with the names of animals to show the sex: billy-goat, nanny-goat; tom-cat, nancy-cat; jack-ass, jenny-ass. In this case the proper name is not capitalized.
A noun can perform different syntactical functions. The noun is used:
1. As subject: Soft white clouds began to spread their wings over the woods (Galsworthy).
2. As object (direct, indirect and prepositional): They reached the outskirts of the forest and saw the lights of the village in which they dwelled (Wilde). Suddenly he turned to the car and put a questionto the sailor.
3. As predicative: The kitchen was a white-washed room with rafters (Galsworthy). It was a perfect morning. The steps and banisters were of oak … (Bronte).
4. As objective predicative: They elected him president of the club. We consider her a talented painter.
5. As subjective predicative: He was appointed headmaster of countryside secondary school. Peter was elected chairman of the meeting held at the University last Friday.
6. As attribute (in the possessive and common case): Irene’s startled eyes were bent watchfully on her boy (Galsworthy). The young farmer’s face lighted up as he saw his friend. They receive London and provincial papers. Do you prefer country or urban life?
7. As adverbial modifier of manner: She said it in a business tone and went out of the room. Winter set in early and unexpectedly with a heavy ball of show (Cronin).
8. As adverbial modifier of place: The sun climbed to the top of the sky. The thunder rumbled and crashed, travelling east along the river (Galsworthy).
9. As adverbial modifier of cause: His voice trembled with emotion. Maggie’s heart began to flutter with fear.
III. Practical task
Task I. Fill in the table below according the way the plural forms are written
| y … ies | o … es | o + s | o … s or o + s |
| Cries | Negroes | Banjos | buffalo(e)s |
A. 1.day; 2.boy; 3.veto; 4. journey; 5. Germany; 6. torpedo; 7. fly; 8. tomato; 9. ray; 10. volcano; 11. city; 12. potato; 13. party; 14. tornado; 15. hero; 16. toy; 17. echo; 18. Kitty; 19. flamingo; 20. lady
Task II. Make the following compound nouns plural:
1. attorney general; 2. notary public; 3. passer-by; 4. assistant director; 5. boy friend; 6. grown-up; sit-in; 7. take-off; 8. forget-me-not; 9. cover-up; 10. show off; 11. looker-on; 12. bird of prey; 13. comrade-in-arms; 14. bride-to-be; 15. man-of- war; 16. fountain-pen; 17. breakdown; 18. stand-by; 19. spoonful; 20. summing-up; 21. tooth-brush; postman; 22. commander-in-chief.
Task III. Fill in the table below according the way the plural forms are written
| A. f … ves | f + s |
| Knives | beliefs |
| B. root vowel change | N + en |
| Teeth | children |
A. hoof; shelf; chief; calf; half; cliff; leaf; roof; safe; life; still life; loaf; wife; cuff; grief; thief; wolf; scarf; elf; sheaf; turf; handkerchief.
B. goose; man; woman; louse; mouse; ox; foot.
Task IV. Fill in the gaps in the sentences below
1. The scissors _ sharp. 2. Measles _ quite serious. 3. Mathematics _ difficult for many people. 4. The tights _ pretty expensive. 5. The pants _ quite worn-out. 6. Their politics _ complicated. 7. Mumps _ said to be pretty dangerous. 8. Braces _ absolutely necessary here. 9. The clothes _ really smart. 10. Billiards _ exciting, and the draughts _ interesting. 11. Diabetes _ painful. 12. The surroundings _ pleasant. 13. The archives _ important. 14. The premises _ comfortable. 15. The outskirts _ wretched. 16. Shingles _ infectious. 17. Cards_ popular with many people. 18. The summons _ been issued.
Task V. Fill in the gaps in the sentences below
1. The hangings _ stripped. 2. Youth _ reckless. 3. The statistics _ inaccurate. 4. The cattle _ thoroughbred. 5. The pajamas _ loose. 6. The committee _ unanimous. 7. The people _ been troublesome. 8. The family _ amiable. 9. The majority _ been against the project. 10. The crowd _ violent. 11. The clergy _ likely to support the new policy. 12. The government _ agreed on the subject. 13. The herd _ branded with the letter. 14. The general public _ not admitted. 15. Vermin _ harmful. 16. The greens _ well-cooked. 17. The police _ efficient. 18. Acrobatics _ difficult. 19. The folk _ openhearted.
Task VI. Substitute, where it is possible, the nouns with the preposition of by the possessive case
1. The new club of the workers. 2. The poems of Lermontov. 3. The clothes of the boys. 4. The walls of the room. 5. The plays of Shakespeare. 6. The voice of his sister. 7. The orders of the commander-in-chief. 8. The pages of the book. 9. The watch of my friend Peter. 10. The birthday of my daughter Helen. 11. The parents of all the other boys. 12. The boats of the fishermen. 13. The opinion of the lawyer. 14. The signature of Mr. Brown. 15. The offer of the seller.
