10. Noun. General

General characteristics.

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 catrgories) 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 un 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.

In most cases in treating parts of speech in English we shall keep to the conception of

scientists that we refer to post-structural tendency. It's because they combine the ideas of

traditional and structural grammarians.

The noun is classified into a separate word - group because:

1. they all have the same lexical - grammatical meaning :

substance / thing

2. according to their form - they've two grammatical categories:

number and case

3. they all have typical stem-building elements:

- er, - ist, - ship, - merit, -hood ...

4. typical combinability with other words:

most often left-hand combinability

5. function - the most characteristic feature of nouns is - they can be observed in all syntactic functions

but predicate.

Some words about the distribution of nouns. Because of the fact that nouns express or

denote substance / thing, their distribution is bound with the words which express the quality of

substance, their number, their actions and their relation to the other words /nouns/ in English.

When the quality of nouns are described we make use of adjectives:

big, red apple

energetic crisis

a long, dusty track and others.

When the quantity and order of nouns are described the numerals are to be used:

the six continents

25th anniversary

12 students....

When we denote the action of substances we make use of the verbs:

An apple-tree grows in the garden

Russia assisted India in Mounting Bokaro Steal Plant

When the relation of nouns to other words are described we make wide use of prepositions

a window of the school

to the park

at the construction of the bridge

In all these cases with the exception of verbs the noun is characterized with left-hand

combinability / in overwhelming majority/. So far as to the verbs are concerned they may both

precede and follow them.