Unit 2: nouns

Test Your Grammar

1. Choose the correct word.

1. Five miles is/are a long way to walk to work.

2. Measles is/are quite a serious illness.

3. Two pounds is/are not enough to buy a CD.

4. The news were/ was quite surprising.

5. The police in Britain wear/wears blue uniforms.

6. Statistics is/are collected from more than 9000 public libraries.

7. The company think/thinks they can solve this problem.

8. More than one company specializing in high precision instruments is/are a success.

2. Choose the most suitable word underlined.

1. All areas of the human skin are in fact covered in tiny hair/hairs.

2. We browsed through the menu and we all ordered chicken/chickens.

3. Kevin is a millionaire and owns a lot of business/businesses.

4. Have you the complete work/works of William Shakespeare ?

5. Students must pass their paper/papers to the front.

6. I'd like coffee, toast/toasts and marmalade please.

7. There is a wood/wood near my house.

8. I'm afraid we can't find cheap accommodation/accommodations for all of you.

3. Fill in each space in the following sentences with an appropriate noun.

1. What are you going to do with this ____________ of cloth?

2. She took another ____________ of corn and put it into a pot.

3. She is a perfect house keeper, you’d never find a ____________ of dust in the house.

4. It was rather cold and wet, a ____________ of fog could be seen over the lake.

5. Ouch! I’ve cut myself with a ____________ of glass. Where is it from?

4. Match the words from two columns to form compound nouns

1. sales a card

2. fire c figures

3. business d wife

4. job e alarm

5. house f description

5. Translate the words in brackets

1. Did you see ____________ (новые серии) of “The Land of Love” yesterday?

2. Have you read ____________ (вчерашнюю) paper?

3. It’s about ____________ (двухдневная) work, I guess.

4. In my office there’s ____________ (мало мебели).

5. How big is their park of ____________ (воздушных суден)?

6. ____________ (Пушкина и Лермонтова) poems still enjoy great popularity.

7. My boss keeps a picture of his ____________ (жены) on his desk.

8. The latest TV version of “Twelve Chairs” is very far away from ____________ (Ильфа и Петрова) book.

9. France is renowned for delicious ____________ (сырами и винами).

10. We managed to catch ____________ (много рыбы) last weekend.

11. Hurricanes, inundations and earthquakes are dangerous ____________ (явления природы).

12. How can small scale firms be prepared to meet the new emergencies and ____________ (финансовыми кризисами)?

13. Their ____________ (штаб-квартира находится) in Vienna.

14. The best way to handle ____________ (c конфликтом интересов) is to avoid it entirely.

Points to Think of

Discuss the following questions:

1. Traditional grammar definitions have a clear general intent, but only a few of them can be applied to all instances. Why is the following definition of a noun inconsistent? “A noun is a word used for naming some person or thing”, e.g. girl, London, flat, starvation, length.

Try to give definitions to the main noun subclasses, Give examples:

NOUNS

Proper Common

Count Noncount

Concrete Abstract Concrete Abstract

2. There are four important features often suggested from a morphological and syntactical points of view for nouns:

A They are words which can be the head of a noun phrase.

B They are words which can be the subject of a clause.

C They are words which can have a plural form.

D They are words which display a suffix, e.g. –tion, -hood.

Discuss whether the examples of nouns mentioned in (1) are “noun-like” in the same way by applying criteria A - B.

3. What groups can you sort out the following nouns into? What are the criteria by which you differentiate them? How can you change the scheme in (1) above?

economics, maths, politics, athletics, billiards, dominoes, mumps, measles, news, five hundred thousand pounds, jury, crew, army, stairs, (good) looks, premises, earnings, poultry, pyjamas, tights, glasses.

4. Do we always use verbs in the plural with nouns which end in –s?

5. Complete the tables filling in the gaps in the rules you can make by analyzing examples:

Examples	We Use Plural Verb Forms With
Designer clothes are rather expensive Also: clothes, people, police, stairs, (good) looks, surroundings, outskirts, premises, earnings, wages, cattle, poultry, etc.	♦ nouns ______
Where are your gloves? I was given a pair of gloves. Also: trousers, binoculars, shorts, shoes, gloves, pyjamas, tights, glasses, earrings, socks, scissors, etc.	♦ nouns which refer to objects that consist of ___________
The jury consistsof twelve people. The jury are all staying at the Park Hotel.	♦ ______________ nouns. But we use plural verbs when we mean the individuals who make up the group.