4. Choose the correct form of nouns underlined.

› Can I pick an apple/some apple from your tree? – Yes, of course.

1. I think she is a beauty/ beauty.

2. We ought to buy some potatoe/some potatoes.

3. I think painting/a painting is a fascinating hobby. – Well, you are certainly very good at it.

4. Is there cheese/a cheese in the soup? – Yes, a little.

5. Shall I put a chicken/some chicken in your sandwiches?

6. It isn’t fair. – No, life/a life just isn’t fair, I’m afraid.

7. They wrapped up the present in a paper/paper.

8. He has a great deal of experience/experiences.

9. The bridge is made of an iron/iron.

10. I’ll have a glass/glasses of orange juice, please.

11. I switched all the light/lights on.

12. I’ve been to France many time/times.

13. We finally found a space/space in the park.

14. Is there an apple/apple in this salad?

15. There’s a hair/hairs on your shirt.

4. Complete the conversations. Put in these nouns: business (x2), experience (x2), glass, iron, light, paper, space, time. Put a/an or some before each noun.

1. Harriet: Did you manage to park in town?

Mike: It took me ages to find ……… And all I wanted was to buy …………… to wrap this present in.

2 Sarah: Are you busy tomorrow?

Mark: I’m meeting someone in the office. We’ve got ………. to discuss.

3 Trevor: Do you think I need to take ……………… with me for my shirts?

Laura: Oh, surely the hotel will have one.

4 Vicky: I was going to have some juice, but I can’t find …………. .

Rachel: If you turned …………. on, you might be able to see properly.

5 Claire: I’ve never met your brother.

Mark: Oh, he’s usually very busy because he runs ……………. . But he’s been ill recently. The doctor has ordered him to spend ……………. resting.

6 Daniel: How did your interview go?

Emma: Well, I didn’t get the job. I think they really wanted someone with ……….. of the work, and that’s what I haven’t got. So it was a bit of waste of time. And the train coming back was two hours late. That’s ……….. I don’t want to repeat.

4. Complete Claire’s postcard to her sister. Choose the correct form.

The island is very peaceful. Life/A life is good here. Everybody moves at a nice slow pace. People have time/a time to stop and talk. It’s experience/an experience I won’t forget for a long time. There aren’t many shops, so I can’t spend all my money, although I did buy painting/a painting yesterday. Now I’m sitting on the beach reading paper/a paper. The hotel breakfast is so enormous that I don’t need to have lunch. I’ve just bought orange/an orange with me to eat later. I’ve been trying all the different fruit/fruits grown in this part of the world, and they’re all delicious.

Morphological composition

According to their morphological composition nouns can be divided into simple, derived, and compound.

Simple nouns consist of only one root-morpheme: dog, chair, room, roof, leaf.

Derived nouns (derivatives) are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes (prefixes or suffixes).

The main noun-forming suffixes are those forming abstract nouns and those forming concrete, personal nouns.

Abstract nouns

Concrete nouns

-age: leakage, vicarage -al: betrayal, portrayal, refusal -ancy/-ency: vacancy, tendency -dom:freedom kingdom -hood: brotherhood, childhood -ing: meaning, cleaning -ion/~sion/-tion/-ation: operation, tension, examination -ism: darvinism, patriotism -ment: agreement, unemployment -ness: darkness, weakness -ship: friendship, membership -ty: cruelty, sanity, banality -th: growth, strength -y: difficulty, honesty

-(i)an: physician, Parisian, republican -ant/-ent: assistant, student, informant -arian: vegetarian -ее: refugee, employee, payee -er: teacher, worker, singer -ician: musician, politician -ist: socialist, artist -or: visitor, actor -let: booklet, leaflet -ess: actress, tigress, waitress -ine: heroine -ix: proprietrix -ette: usherette The four suffixes -ess, -ine, -ette are feminine.

Sometimes nouns formed by abstract noun suffixes may come to de­note concrete things or persons as in translation (a process and its result), beauty (may denote an abstract notion and a beautiful woman).

Compound nouns consist of at least two stems. The meaning of a compound is not a mere sum of its elements. The main types of compound nouns are:

noun stem + noun stem:	seaman, airmail
adjective stem + noun stem:	bluebell blackbird
verb stem + noun stem:	pickpocket
gerund + noun stem:	looking-glass dancing-hall
noun stem + prepositions + noun stem:			father-in-law mother-in-law man-of-war
substantivised phrases:		forget-me-not pick-me-up