5.4. The main adjectival oppositions.

Grammatical oppositions based on the semantical criterion

LEVEL	PRESENTATION	STRONG MEMBER
UPPER	common adjectives –– statives	common adjectives
LOWER	(common only) relative-qualitative	Qualitative

Grammatical oppositions based on the degree of comparison

TYPES OF OPPOSITION	LEVELS	DESCRIPTION	STRONG MEMBER
DEGREES	UPPER	positive –– superiority degrees	superiority degrees
	LOWER	comparative-superlative degree	superlative degree
FORMS	UPPER	syntactical- analytical forms	analytical forms
	LOWER	direct- reverse analytical forms	Direct
FUNCTION	EVALUATIVE	evaluative- specificative	Evaluative
	SYNTACTICAL	attributive -predicative	attributive

3. 6. The noun: its syntactical properties

To the nounal syntactical properties belong

a) two types of combinability with other words

So it is typical of the noun to get the prepositional combinability with another noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb. ( an entrance to the house; to turn round the corner; red in the face; far from its destination.) and the casal (possessive) combinability (the speech of the President — the President's speech; the cover of the book — the book's cover)

b) the functions in a sentence.

As matter of fact the noun may be used in very different functions in a sentence. So it may be seen as

1) THE SUBJECT: — The night was very dark.

2) THE SUBSTANTIVAL PREDICATIVE —: His father was a miner.

3) THE OBJECT: The Soviet industry has given the coal cormbine to the miner

Uranium can be produced from thorium

4) THE ATTRIBUTE Have you any laboratory experience?

5) THE MODIFIER:

Не walked back slowly into the room. Он медленно вернулся в комнату.

By transformations shifting the noun from various non-subject syntactic positions into subject syntactic positions of the same general semantic value, which is impossible with other parts of speech.

Mary is a flower-girl. — The flower girl is Mary.

I read a book to the children in the evening . — A book was read…

He lives in Glasgow — Glasgow is a place for him to live

CONCLUSIONS:

1. The noun is the main nominative part of speech, effecting nomination of the fullest value within the framework of the notional division of lexicon.

2. The general characteristics of a noun is presented by three classical criteria.

So by its meaning the noun denote the substance,

by its formal characteristics it has the following categories:

• the category of gender,

• the category of number,

• the category of case

• the category of determination.

By syntactical criterion it may have

• two types of combinability with other words (the prepositional and the casal combinability)

• different functions in a sentence(subject, object, modifiers, attribute, substantival predicate)

3. There are two approaches to the nounal classifications :

• based on one criterion (either semantical or morphological )

• based on two criteria. (semantical+ morphological)

This approach allow to determine the principals of nounal classification

• type of nominatation

• form of existence

• personal quality

• qualitative structure

• form of presentation

4. There are two ways of expressing gender in English :

• grammatically (by sex determined pronouns and suffixes)

• semantically (sex-indicators, nominal pairs)

4. There are two oppositions based on the category of gender

• human –non-human (SM- human)

• masculine — feminine (SM — feminine)

4. There are three oppositions based on the category of number :

• singular-plural (SM — plural)

• productive- non productive way of the producing the plural form (SM — productive)

• singularia tantum — pluralia tantum (SM — pluralia tantum)

7. The absolute singular is expressed by The absolute plural is expressed by

• singularia tantum

• the countable nouns in the meaning of

some abstract idea

• pluralia tantum

• collective nouns in the meaning of “plural multitude”

• the plural form of uncountable nouns in the meaning of “descriptive plural”

• the singular form of countable nouns in the meaning of “repetition plural:

APPENDIX 1

Different definitions of nouns

In traditional school grammars, one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. It has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being uninformative.

Contemporary linguists generally agree that one cannot successfully define nouns (or other grammatical categories) in terms of what sort of object in the world they refer to or signify. Part of the conundrum is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns (thing, phenomenon, event) to define what nouns are.

The existence of such general nouns demonstrates that nouns refer to entities that are organized in taxonomic hierarchies. But other kinds of expressions are also organized into such structured taxonomic relationships. For example the verbs stroll, saunter, stride, and tread are more specific words than the more general walk

. Moreover, walk is more specific than the verb move, which, in turn, is less general than change. But it is unlikely that such taxonomic relationships can be used to define nouns and verbs. We cannot define verbs as those words that refer to changes or states, for example, because the nouns change and state probably refer to such things, but, of course, aren't verbs. Similarly, nouns like invasion, meeting, or collapse refer to things that are done or happen. In fact, an influential theory has it that verbs like kill or die refer to events

The point being made here is not that this view of verbs is wrong, but rather that this property of verbs is a poor basis for a definition of this category, just like the property of having wheels is a poor basis for a definition of cars (some things that have wheels, such as most suitcases or a jumbo jet, aren't cars). Similarly, adjectives like yellow or difficult might be thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like outside or upstairs seem to refer to places, which are also among the sorts of things nouns can refer to. But verbs, adjectives and adverbs are not nouns, and nouns aren't verbs, adjectives or adverbs. One might argue that definitions of this sort really rely on speakers' prior intuitive knowledge of what nouns, verbs and adjectives are, and, so don't really add anything over and this. Speakers' intuitive knowledge of such things might plausibly be based on formal criteria, such as the traditional grammatical definition of English nouns aforementioned.

APPENDIX 2

TYPES OF DERIVATIVE NOUNS

1) affixative derivative nouns – words consisting of root morpheme and one or more affixes (worker, hopelessness)

2) composite derivative nouns – two or more derivate stem combined in one lexical unit ( microphone);

К наиболее характерным суффиксам производных существительных относятся:

- er: worker рабочий, writer писатель

- ment: development развитие, government правительство

- ness: happiness счастье, kindness любезность

- ton: restriction ограничение, connection связь

- dom: freedom свобода, wisdom мудрость

- hood: childhood детство, neighbourhood соседство

- ship: leadership руководство, friendship дружб

TYPES OF COMPOUND NOUNS

There are three forms of compound words (British Council), (Commnet) :