§ 18. In accordance with their structure the following four types of stems are usually distinguished:

1. Simple, containing only the root, as in day, dogs, write, wanted, etc.

2. Derivative, containing affixes or other stem-building elements, as in boyhood, rewrite, strength, speech (cf. speak) transport, etc.

¹ See Ю. А. Жлуктенко. О так называемых «сложных гла­голах» типа⁴ stand up в современном английском языке. («Вопросы языкознания», 1954, № 5).

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3. Compound, containing two or more roots, as in white­ wash, pickpocket, appletree, motor-car, brother-in-law, etc.

Note: The stems of blue-eyed, lion-hearted, etc. are both compound and derivative and are sometimes called compound derivatives'.

4. Composite, containing free lexico-grammatical word- morphemes or otherwise having the form of a combination of words, as in give up, two hundred and twenty-five, at last, in spite of, etc.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS

§ 19. A morpheme usually has more than one meaning. This is the case, for instance, with both the lexical and the grammatical morpheme in the word runs. The morpheme run- has the following meanings: 1) "move with quick steps" (The boy runs fast); 2) "flow" (A tear runs ...); 3) "become" (to run dry), 4) "manage" (run a business); 5) "cause to move" (run a car), and many others. The meanings of the -s morpheme are as follows' 1) "present tense", 2) "indicative mood", 3) "third person", 4) "singular number", 5) "non-continuous aspect", and some others.

All the lexical meanings of the word runs, inherent in the morpheme tun-, unite this word with to run, running, will run, shall run, has run, had run, is running, was running, etc. into one group called a lexeme. ^l

All the grammatical meanings of the word runs, inherent in the morpheme -s, unite this word with walks, stands, sleeps, skates, lives and a great many other words into a group we shall call a grammeme ².

The words of a lexeme or of a grammeme are united not only by the meanings of the corresponding morpheme, but

¹ As already mentioned (§ 6), many grammarians use the term word with regard to such a group

² The term grammeme (gratneme), with a different meaning, was used by К Pike in Language т Relation to a Unified Theory of Human Behavior (1954—1955) and Grammemic Theory in Reference to Restricted Problems of Morpheme Classes (1957) In 1958 Pike replaced grammeme with Bloomfield's term tagmeme

A Juilland (Outline of a General Theory of Structural Relations Mon-ton, 1961) uses the terms lexeme, grammeme for 'roots' and 'non-loots'.

See also 3. M Волоцкая, Т'Н Молочная, Т М Ни­колаева. Опыт описания русского языка в его письменной форме. М , 1964, where the term граммема is used to denote an elementary morphological meaning (p. 35).

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by its form too. Still the content is of greater importance, the form often differing considerably. The words runs and ran, for instance, have the same lexical meanings and belong therefore to the same lexeme in spite of the formal difference (but see § 11). Even more significant is an example like buy and bought. But most striking are cases like go and went, I and me, etc. (see later, § 28). Similar examples cap illustrate the formal variations of a grammatical morpheme uniting words into a grammeme: lived, walked, skated, slept, ran, went.

The number of words in an English lexeme may vary from one (must; milk; woolen; always) to several dozens (writes, wrote, will write, shall write, am writing, are writing, was writing, were writing, have written, has written, had written, is written, was written, etc.).

Note. The lexeme represented by write contains 94 words expressed by 64 forms, of these only 10 words have synthetic forms, five in number, Here they are:

1. write (infinitive, indicative, subjunctive, imperative)

2. writes

3. wrote (indicative, subjunctive)

4. writing (gerund, participle)

5. written

The number of words in a grammeme is usually very great, practically limitless. But occasionally a grammeme may contain one word only. For instance, the grammeme having the meanings of 'indicative mood', 'past tense', 'plural number', 'non-continuous aspect', and 'non-perfect order' (see § 212) contains but one word — were.

§ 20. From the previous paragraph it is clear that a word like runs containing a lexical and a grammatical morpheme is at the same time a member of a certain lexeme and of a certain grammeme. In a lexeme the lexical morpheme may be regarded as invariable (at least in content) and the grammat­ical morphemes as variables. In a grammeme, on the con­trary, the grammatical morpheme is invariable and the le­xical morphemes are variables. This can be seen from the following table.

THE NOUN

§ 64. As follows from our previous discussion of the parts of speech in English, the noun may be defined as a part of speech characterized by the following features:

1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of "substance".

2. The categories of number and case.

3. Typical stem-building morphemes, as in: Marx-ist, work-er, friend-ship, tncnage-ment, etc.

4. Left-hand connections with articles, prepositions, ad­ jectives, possessive pronouns, other nouns, etc.

5. The functions of subject, complement (see § 435) and other parts of the sentence.

§ 65. As already mentioned (§ 41), stem-structure is not a reliable criterion for distinguishing parts of speech. Noun lexemes, like those of other parts of speech, have stems of various types (see § 18). Still, composite stems are less typical of nouns than of other parts of speech, especially verbs. Cf. look on, look out, look in and looker-on, (to be (П the) look-out, (to have a) look-in, or onlooker, outlook, etc. We regard as composite the stems of proper nouns like the Hague, the Urals, the Volga, where the is part of the name (see § 370). Compound stems, on the contrary, are more typical of nouns than of any other part of speech (greyhound, postmark, pickpock­et, son-in-law, passer-by, etc.).

§ 66. Many nouns are related by conversion ^г with lexemes belonging to other parts of speech:

adjectives, e. g. light, native, Russian verbs, e. g. love, show, picture

adverbs, e. g. home, south, back.

§ 67. The noun is the most numerous lexico-grammatical class of lexemes. It is but natural that it should be divided

¹ See «; 200.

² See § 59.

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into subclasses. From the grammatical point of view most important is the division of nouns into countables and un-countables with regard to the category of number and into declinables and indeclinables with regard to the category of case (see § 84).

All other classifications ' are semantical rather than gram­matical. For instance, when dividing nouns into abstract and concrete ones, we usually take into consideration not the properties of words but the properties of the things they denote. The abstract noun smile does not differ from the concrete noun book in its paradigm (smile — smiles, book — books) or its lexico-grammatical combinability (He gave me one of his best books (smiles). See, for instance, the 'plural' suffix used with abstract nouns in // is the customary {ate of new t г и t h s to begin as heresies and to end as s и -perstitions (Huxley). Certainly, many abstract nouns (pride, darkness, etc.) are uncountables, but so are many concrete nouns (wool, peasantry, etc.).

The group of collective nouns mentioned in many grammars is grammatically not homogeneous. Some collective nouns are countables (government, family, etc.), while others are not (foliage, peasantry, etc.).

The term class nouns is mostly synonymous with the term countables.

Material nouns are a peculiar group of uncountables.

Proper nouns are another, even more peculiar, group of uncountables (though sometimes they form number oppose-tnes. Cf. Brown — (the) Browns, a week of Sundays).

In so far as the lexemes of the above groups show certain peculiarities with regard to combinability and the category of number they will be treated in the corresponding paragraphs of this book.

§ 68. The combinability of the noun is closely connected with its lexico-grammatical meaning. Denoting substances, nouns are naturally associated with words describing the qualities of substances (adjectives), their number and order (numerals), their actions (verbs), relations (prepositions), etc.

¹ See M. Ganshina, N. Vasilevskaya, op. cit. p. 16; В. К а у ш а н-ская, Р. Ковнер, О. Кожевникова, Е.Прокофьев, 3. Р а и н е с, С. С к в и р с к а я, Ф. Ц ы р л и н a. A Grammar of the English Language. L., 1959, p. 16.

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The combinability of nouns is variable. They have left-hand connections with articles (a day, the ink), some pronouns (my friend, that colour), most adjectives (good relations, young Jolyon, but from time immemorial), numerals (two visitors, the third degree, but also page ten). With prepositions nouns have both left-hand and right-hand connections (to Moscow, at the thought of ...), but only left-hand connections are a char­acteristic feature of the noun, since most parts of speech may have right-hand connections with prepositions (reminds of..., capable of..., Hie first of..., westof...).W\i\\ verbs nouns can form both right-hand and left-hand connections (John met Peter).

§ 69. Of certain interest is the combinability of nouns with other nouns. Combinations like my neighbour's dog, the dog of my neighbour, that dog of my neighbour's show that a noun in the common case may be preceded by another noun in the possessive case and may be followed by a noun with a preposition. There is, however, disagreement among lin­guists as to the combinability of two (or more) nouns in the common case without a preposition.

Linguists are at issue concerning such language units as cannon ball, stone wall, speech sound, etc. The essence of the problem is whether they are compound words (like motor-car) or word-combinations, in the latter case whether the adjunct-word is a noun or an adjective.

Producing the opinions of H. Sweet, O. Jespersen and G. Weber, B. A. Ilyish still considers the first part of the problem debatable ^l. At the same time he maintains that the first components of the units discussed are nouns functionally resembling adjectives ², though no arguments are offered.

A. I. Smirnitsky and O. S. Akhmanova regard these units as a kind of unstable compounds easily developing into word-combinations ⁸. The first components, they say, are not nouns since:

1. They are not used in the plural (cf. a rose garden and a garden of roses).

2. Nouns are used as attributes only in the possessive case or with a preposition.

¹ Б А И л ь и ш, op. cit , p. 300.

² Ib , p. 83.

³ А. И Смирницкий, О. С. Ахманова. Образования типа stone wall, speech 'ound в английском языке Институт языкозна­ ния, «Доклады и сообщения». М., 1952, v. II, р. 97.

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Hence they draw the conclusion that these first components are noun-stems convertible into adjectives. We do not find these arguments convincing:

1. The first components of such units do occur in the plural (artramenti drive, munitions board). The 'plural' is mostly observed when there is no 'singular' opposite (a trou­ sers pocket) or misunderstanding is otherwise possible (cf. plains people and plain people, the United Nations Organization and the United Nation Organization). In other cases number opposemes are regularly neutralized in this position and the member of neutralization (see § 43) is usually the 'singular'.

2. The first components of such formations may have left-hand connections with adjectives (film exchange — new film exchange, wall space — the red wall space), nouns in the possessive case (a skin trunk — a cow's skin trunk), nouns in the common case (paper writing — business paper writing), numerals (32 years practice), etc., like ordinary nouns and not like noun-stems.

3. Practically every noun may be used as the first compo­ nent of such combinations, and, vice versa, every first compo­ nent of such combinations is identified with the corresponding noun as the same word. This is particularly clear with nouns possessing special stem-building suffixes (e. g. conveyor belt, education authorities, etc.), with proper nouns (the Kennedy administration) or when the first component consists of two nouns connected by a conjunction (e. g. Mothei and child care).

Hence we come to the following conclusions:

1. The first components in formations like stone wall, speech sound are nouns, not noun-stems.

2. Consequently these formations are noun word-combina­ tions with noun adjuncts.