3. It is doubtful whether the grammatical category of gender exists in Modern English for it is hardly ever expressed by means of grammatical forms.
There is practically only one gender-forming suffix in Modern English, the suffix -es, expressing feminine gender. It is not widely used.
heir —heir-ess
poet — poet-ess
actor — actr-ess
waiter — waitr-ess
host - host-ess
lion — lion-ess
tiger — tigr-ess[26]
2.2.2 Syntactical Characteristics of Nouns
Due the syntactical characteristics nouns can be classified in following ways:
The chief syntactical functions of the noun in the sentence are those of the subject and the object. But it may also be used as an attribute or a predicative.
The sun was rising in all his splendid beauty. (Dickens) (subject)
Troy and Yates followed the tourists. (Heym) (object)
He (Bosinney) was an architect ... (Galsworthy) (predicative)
Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish... (Mansfield) (attribute; the noun glass is used in the common case)
The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. (Mansfield) (attribute; the noun father is used in the genitive case)
A noun preceded by a preposition (a prepositional phrase) may be used as attribute, prepositional indirect object, and adverbial modifier.
To the left were clean panes of glass. (Ch. Bronte) (attribute)
Bicket did not answer, his throat felt too dry. He had heard of the police. (Galsworthy) (object) She went into the drawing-room and lighted the fire. (Mansfield) (Adverbial modifier).
"Stop everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment. (Mansfield) (Adverbial modifier).
The noun is generally associated with the article. Because of the comparative scarcity of morphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show that the word is a noun.
A noun can be modified by an adjective, a pronoun, by another noun or by verbals.
2.2.3 Characteristics of nouns due the way of their composition
According to their morphological composition we distinguish simple, derivative and compound nouns.
1. Simple nouns are nouns which have neither prefixes no suffixes. They are indecomposable: chair, table, room, map, fish, work.
2. Derivative nouns are nouns which have derivative elements (prefixes or suffixes or both): reader, sailor, blackness, childhood, misconduct, inexperience.
Productive noun-forming suffixes are:
-er: reader, teacher, worker
-ist: communist, telegraphist, dramatist
-ess: heiress, hostess, actress
-ness: carelessness, madness, blackness
-ism: socialism, nationalism, imperialism
Unproductive suffixes are:
-hood: childhood, manhood
-dom: freedom
-ship: friendship, relationship
-meat: development
-ance: importance
-ence: dependence
-ty: cruelty
-ity: generosity
3. Compound nouns are nouns built from two or more stems. Compound nouns often have one stress. The meaning of a compound often differs from the meanings of its elements.
The main types of compound nouns are as follows:
(a) noun-stem+noun-stem: appletree, snowball;
(b) adjective-stem+noun-stem: blackbird, bluebell;
(c) verb-stem+noun-stem: pickpocket; the stem of a gerund or of a participle may be the first component of a compound noun:
dining-room, reading-hall, dancing-girl.
2.2.4 Semantical Characteristics of Nouns
Nouns fall under two classes: (A) proper nouns; (B) common nouns[27].
a) Proper nouns are individual, names given to separate persons or things. As regards their meaning proper nouns may be personal names (Mary, Peter, Shakespeare), geographical names (Moscow, London, the Caucasus), the names of the months and of the days of the week (February, Monday), names of ships, hotels, clubs, etc.
A large number of nouns now proper were originally common nouns (Brown, Smith, Mason).
Proper nouns may change their meaning and become common nouns:
"George went over to the table and took a sandwich and a glass of champagne. (Aldington)
b) Common nouns are names that can be applied to any individual of ad ass of .persons or things (e.g. man, dog, book), collections of similar individuals or things regarded as a single unit (e. g. peasantry, family), materials (e. g. snow, iron, cotton) or abstract notions (e.g. kindness, development).
Thus there are different groups of common nouns: class nouns, collective nouns, nouns of material and abstract nouns.
1. Class nouns denote persons or things belonging to a class. They are countables and have two. numbers: singular and plural. They are generally used with an article.
"Well, sir," said Mrs. Parker, "I wasn't in the shop above a great deal." (Mansfield)
He goes to the part of the town where the shops are. (Lessing)
2. Collective nouns denote a number or collection of similar individuals or things as a single unit.
Collective nouns fall under the following groups:
(a) nouns used only in the singular and denoting-a number of things collected together and regarded as a single object: foliage, machinery.
It was not restful, that green foliage. (London)
Machinery new to the industry in Australia was introduced for preparing land. (Agricultural Gazette)
(b) nouns which are singular in form though plural in meaning:
police, poultry, cattle, people, gentry They are usually called nouns of multitude. When the subject of the sentence is a noun of multitude the verb used as predicate is in the plural:
I had no idea the police were so devilishly prudent. (Shaw)
Unless cattle are in good condition in calving, milk production will never reach a high level. (Agricultural Gazette)
The weather was warm and the people were sitting at their doors. (Dickens)
(c) nouns that may be both singular and plural: family, crowd, fleet, nation. We can think of a number of crowds, fleets or different nations as well as of a single crowd, fleet, etc.
A small crowd is lined up to see the guests arrive. (Shaw)
Accordingly they were soon afoot, and walking in the direction of the scene of action, towards which crowds of people were already pouring from a variety of quarters. (Dickens)
3. Nouns of material denote material: iron, gold, paper, tea, water. They are uncountables and are generally used without any article.
There was a scent of honey from the lime-trees in flower. (Galsworthy)
There was coffee still in the urn. (Wells)
Nouns of material are used in the plural to denote different sorts of a given material.
... that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select wines to him... (Thackeray)
Nouns of material may turn into class nouns (thus becoming countables) when they come to express an individual object of definite shape.
Compare:
- To the left were clean panes of glass. (Ch. Bronte)
"He came in here," said the waiter looking at the light through the tumbler, "ordered a glass of this ale." (Dickens)
But the person in the glass made a face at her, and Miss Moss went out. (Mansfield).
4. Abstract nouns denote some quality, state, action or idea: kindness, sadness, fight. They are usually uncountables, though some of them may be countables.
Therefore when the youngsters saw that mother looked neither frightened nor offended, they gathered new courage. (Dodge)
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse — I never had an idea of plying it. (Ch. Bronte)
It's these people with fixed ideas. (Galsworthy)
Abstract nouns may change their meaning and become class nouns. This change is marked by the use of the article and of the plural number:
beauty a beauty beauties
sight a sight sights
He was responsive to beauty and here was cause to respond. (London)
She was a beauty. (Dickens)
... but she isn't one of those horrid regular beauties. (Aldington)
2.3 English Nouns in Speech.
2.3.1 Noun Grammemes in Speech
An English noun lexeme may contain four words at most (boy, boys, boy's, boys'). Each of these words, as we know, represents not only the lexeme, but a certain grammeme as well. The grammeme represented by the word boy, for instance, includes all the English words having the two actual grammatical meanings of 'common case' and 'singular number' (girl, teacher, mile, etc.). The word book does not belong to this grammeme because it has only one actual grammatical meaning, that of 'singular number'. The meaning of 'common case' is only potential or oblique. So book represents another noun grammeme. The word England represents a different grammeme with the actual grammatical meaning of 'common case' (cf. England's) and the oblique grammatical meaning of 'singular number'.
If we assume that each grammatical meaning can be actual and oblique, there are four grammatical meanings of 'number', and they can be combined with four 'case' meanings each, to constitute 16 grammemes. In reality, however, the 'possessive case' meaning cannot be oblique in English, i. e. there are no words with the form and combinability of a 'possessive case' member of a case opposeme that have no 'common case' opposites. Nouns like St. Paul's, the baker's, denoting places, have certainly no opposites with the same lexical meaning and the 'common case' form, but their distribution resembles rather the distribution of 'common case' nouns (cf. at the baker's, from the baker's and at the shop, from Иге shop). If, however, we regard them as constituting a separate grammeme with the oblique meanings of 'singular number' and 'possessive case', we may speak of 13 noun grammemes in English. In the table1 (appendix) they are represented by one word each.
The frequency of the occurrence of different grammemes in speech[28] is different. We have analysed several texts containing a total of 6,000 nouns and counted the occurrence of each grammeme. In the table 2 (Appendix) we give the results.
When analysing an opposeme of any category, we regard the grammatical meanings of its members as elementary, indivisible and unchangeable, determined only by the contrast with the opposite meanings. But in speech words are contrasted with other words not paradigmatically, in opposemes, but syntagmatically, in word-combinations. Depending on these combinations, grammatical meanings may vary considerably.
We must also take into consideration that single grammatical meanings may occur in speech only in case a word has but one such meaning. Otherwise all the grammatical meanings of a word go in a bunch characteristic of the grammeme to which the word belongs. So if we want to see the different shades a given grammatical meaning may acquire in speech, we are to analyse in a text the words of different grammemes containing that meaning. If, for instance, the variation of the 'singular' meaning is to be investigated we are to study the grammemes represented by the words boy, boy's, England, England's, book, milk, St. Paul's. We shall call them 'singular' grammemes for short.
The representatives of 'singular' grammemes constitute the bulk of nouns found in an English text (more than 70 per cent of the total number). Following is a brief summary of what a 'singular' noun may denote in speech.
1. One object. The plane struck a seagull. (Daily Worker).
2. A unique object. Shakespeare's name will live forever. (Ib.).
3. A whole class of objects. The English gentleman is dead. (Walpole).
In this sense 'singularity' gets very close to 'plurality'. So close indeed, that sometimes 'singular' and 'plural' nouns are actually interchangeable.
Cf. The polar bear lives in thе North.
Polar bears live in the North.
Here as elsewhere extremes meet.
4. A 'singular' collective noun stands for a group of beings or things viewed as an integrated whole, e. g. peasantry, humanity, mankind.
5. A 'singular' abstract or material noun may show some abstract concept or substance which is not associated with any idea of singularity.
I have accepted with tolerance the established conventions of syntax. (Vallins).
Nouns representing 'plural' grammemes may denote:
1. Two or more homogeneous objects.
Molly was very proud to be able to decide such questions. (Steinbeck).
2. A whole class of objects.
The Hindus and the Muslims liked and trusted him. (Maugham).
Foreigners on the whole were very dangerous people. (Ib).
3. A number of objects similar, though not identical (the plural of approximation).
A woman in her late thirties.
4. Individual objects.
His trousers looked shabby.
5. A mass of some substance.
A lion does not live on leavings. (Maxwell).
6. Boundless extension or repetition. The usage is aimed at producing a stylistic effect.
The snоws of the Polar Region. The waters of the Danube.
Nouns representing 'common case' grammemes express a wide range of meanings, the exhaustive examination of which is hardly feasible. Here are some of them.
1. A doer of an action or the carrier of some property.
The young worker challenged the Prime Minister to go and meet Britain's jobless young people. (Daily Worker).
2. A recipient of some action.
He wanted to employ the axiоims of arithmetic. (Whittaker).
3. The person (or thing) for whom something is done.
He gave M a r упо time to change her mind. (Daily Worker).
4. An instrument. When so used, the 'common case' noun is mostly associated with a preposition,
e. g. to cut with a knife.
5. Circumstances of different events. When so used, the 'common case' noun is mostly introduced by a preposition.
Time: Every Saturday night she bought a joint of meat. (Coppard).
Place: I arrived at P a r k Lane. (Wilde).
Manner: Everything went off without a hitсh. (Hornby), etc.
6. A property or characteristic of some substance.
The house committee was ready to act. (Daily Worker).
7. A person or thing as an object of comparison.
That monster of a dog.
As we have seen, 'possessive case' nouns occur a great deal less frequently than their opposites[29].
The range of meaning of the possessive case is incomparably narrower than that of the common case. Yet linguists point out a number of meanings a 'possessive case' noun may express in speech[30].
a) possession, belonging (Peter's bicycle)
b) personal or social relations (Peter's wife)
c) authorship (Peter's poem)
d) origin or source (the sun's rays)
e) kind or species (ladies' hats)
f) the relation of the whole to its part (Peter's hand)
g) subjective relations (Peter's arrival)
h) objective relations (Peter's being sent)
i) characteristic (her mother's care), (rather rare)
j) measure (a night's reflection; a mile's distance).
Sometimes the relations of a 'possessive case' noun are ambiguous. The relation in her daughter's loss may be interpreted either as subjective or as objective. This can be accounted for by the fact that her daughter's loss may be regarded as a transformation (or a transform) of two different sentences.
Her daughter lost == daughter’s loss
Her daughter was lost == daughter’s loss
In other words, having no voice distinctions, the noun loss may correspond to both the active and the passive voice of the verb.
Since both 'possessive case' and 'common case' nouns may have right-hand connections with other nouns, it is interesting to see the difference between the two combinations in speech. This is what W. N. Francis writes on the subject [31]: "Nouns make up a considerable number (as many as 25 per sent) of the single-word modifiers of nouns
Possessive Noun-adjunct
child's play child psychology
a dog's life the dog days
a day's work the day shift'
my father's house a father image
that woman's doctor that woman doctor
The last pair illustrates vividly the difference in meaning there may be between these two structures of modification. The formal difference between them may be described as follows: a construction with of may be substituted for the possessive construction, and the determiner [32] (if there is one) will then go with the modifying noun; on the other hand, some other kind of construction must be substituted for the noun-adjunct, and the determiner goes with the head noun. In the following illustrations the symbol > means "transforms into"