Noun. Lexical and grammatical meaning

Noun is a part of speech that names an object and answers questions "who what?". Nouns have a number of features with which you can classify all nouns by type.

The main features of the noun.

• The grammatical meaning of a noun - general meaning subject, everything that can be said about this subject: it what ? Or who ? This part of speech can mean the following:

1) The name of objects and things ( table, ceiling, pillow, spoon);

2) Names of substances ( gold, water, air, sugar);

3) Names of living beings ( dog, person, child, teacher);

4) Names of actions and states ( murder, laughter, sadness, sleep);

5) The name of the phenomena of nature and life ( rain, wind, war, holiday);

6) Names of features and abstract properties ( white, fresh, blue).

• Syntactic sign of a noun is the role it occupies in the sentence. Most often, a noun acts as a subject or object. But in some cases, nouns can also act as other members of the sentence.

Mother cooks very delicious borscht (subject).

Borscht is prepared from beets, cabbage, potatoes and others vegetables (addition).

Beet is vegetable red, sometimes purple (nominal predicate).

Beet from the garden- the most useful (definition).

Mother- chef knows how to surprise his household at the table, mom- friend able to listen and comfort (Appendix).

Also, a noun in a sentence can act as appeals:

Mother, I need your help!

• By lexical Nouns can be of two types:

1. Common nouns are words that mean general concepts or name a class of objects: chair, knife, dog, earth.

2. Proper names- these are words meaning single objects, which include names, surnames, names of cities, countries, rivers, mountains (and other geographical names), animal names, titles of books, films, songs, ships, organizations, historical events etc: Barsik, Weaver, Titanic, Europe, Sahara and etc.

Features of proper names in Russian:

1. Proper names are always capitalized.
2. Proper names have only one number form.
3. Proper names can consist of one or more words: Alla, Viktor Ivanovich Popov, "Loneliness in the Net", Kamensk-Uralsky.
4. Titles of books, magazines, ships, films, paintings, etc. written in quotation marks and capitalized: "Girl with Peaches", "Mtsyri", "Aurora", "Science and Technology".
5. Proper names can become common nouns, and common nouns can move into the category of proper names: Boston - Boston (a type of dance), though - the Pravda newspaper.

• By type of item nouns are divided into two categories:

1. animated names nouns- those nouns that denote the names of wildlife (animals, birds, insects, people, fish). This category of nouns answers the question "who?": father, puppy, whale, dragonfly.

2. Inanimate nouns- those nouns that refer to the real and answer the question "what?": wall, board, machine, ship and etc.

• By value Nouns can be divided into four types:

Real- kind of nouns naming substances: air, dirt, ink, sawdust etc. This kind of nouns has only one form of number - the one that we know. If the noun has the form singular, then it cannot have a plural form and vice versa. The number, size, volume of these nouns can be adjusted using cardinal numbers: few, many, few, two tons, cubic meter and etc.

Specific- nouns that name specific units of objects of living or inanimate nature: man, pole, worm, door. These nouns change in number and combine with numerals.

Collective- these are nouns that generalize many identical objects into one name: many warriors - an army, a lot of leaves - foliage etc. This category nouns can only exist in the singular and cannot be combined with cardinal numbers.

Abstract (abstract)- these are nouns that name abstract concepts that do not exist in the material world: suffering, joy, love, grief, fun.

Oct 05 2010

Words in Russian are divided into classes, which are called parts of speech. The modern scientific classification of parts of speech is based on the following features:
1) general grammatical meaning(object, action, sign of the object, sign of action, quantity);
2) general system changes (nouns are declined, adjectives are declined, verbs are conjugated, etc.);
3) general syntactic function.

According to these features, the following parts of speech are distinguished.

1. A noun denotes an object in a broad sense; has a gender, changes in numbers and cases; in a sentence it is usually the subject or the object.
2. The adjective denotes a sign of an object; changes by gender, number and case, consistent with the noun; performs the function of a definition or nominal part in a sentence compound predicate.
3. The numeral designates the quantity; changes in cases; can be subject, predicate, object, definition.
4. The pronoun as a part of speech is distinguished in the school tradition on the basis of its inherent demonstrative function. Pronouns are words that do not name anything, but they can also indicate objects (you, nobody, someone, he), and signs (some, some, that), and quantity (how many, several).
5. The verb denotes an action or state; conjugates (changes in persons and numbers); most often in a sentence is a predicate.
6. An adverb denotes a sign of an action or a sign, i.e. an adjective; does not change; is a circumstance, less often a definition.

These are independent, or significant, parts of speech. In the proposal, they are its members. There are also service parts of speech that are not able to independently be members of the sentence:

1. The preposition serves to link words in phrases and sentences (in, due to, through, during, due to).
2. The union serves to communicate homogeneous members sentences and sentences (a, but, for, as if, etc.).
3. The particle adds additional meaning to the sentence - denial, doubt, question, reinforcement, etc.: (didn't know about it; Didn't you know about it?; Even he didn't know about it; Did he know about it?) .
There is also a group of onomatopoeic words and interjections that are not members of the sentence, do not name anything, but express feelings and motives. In speech, they act as inseparable sentences: Ah! Yes! Well! Hooray! Meow-meow, kitty-kitty.
Let's consider each group in more detail. So, the noun is an independent part of speech, the most numerous in the Russian language. She names the phenomena of reality:

Names of objects and things;
names of living beings;
names of events and phenomena of public life;
names of natural phenomena;
names of substances;
names of abstract properties and attributes.
Thus, one of the main grammatical features noun is its objectivity. The composition distinguishes several groups of nouns:
common nouns and own;
abstract and concrete;
animate and inanimate;
collective and real.

Common nouns include such nouns that denote generalized names of phenomena and objects. They name groups of homogeneous objects. Such nouns include, for example, a constellation, a river, a student, etc.
Proper nouns name a specific object or phenomenon, for example, Russia, Germany, Yenisei, etc. In turn, proper nouns are divided into separate groups: names, nicknames, surnames of people (Nikolai, Chizhik, Bazarov); geographical and territorial names (Thames, Petrovka, Smolensk region, etc.); names of holidays, historical events, etc.
Inanimate nouns call inanimate objects, such as a car, house, machine tool, etc., and animate, on the contrary, they call living things, such as a badger, mosquito, fox, horse, bear, etc.

Specific nouns name a specific object, events, facts, animal, etc.
Abstract nouns characterize abstract concepts, qualities, properties, actions.
Real nouns characterize a particular substance, oxygen, hydrogen, salt, etc.
Collective nouns combine many homogeneous objects into one whole, for example, youth, peasantry, merchants, etc.
As for the name of the adjective, according to lexical and grammatical features, qualitative and relative ones are distinguished.

Qualitative adjectives are characterized by the fact that they denote a feature that belongs directly to the subject. Qualitative adjectives are divided into several thematic groups according to the type of signs: signs of a person’s emotional state (sad, cheerful), signs of color, signs of space and place (narrow, spacious), signs of quality (bad, good), moral and intellectual signs (cowardly, heartless ).

Relative adjectives denote a sign indicating the relationship of this object to other objects. In turn, relative adjectives are divided into groups: proper-relative (glassware, stone floor, iron railings); possessive adjectives (mother's hairpin, grandmother's cakes, bear's paw); ordinal adjectives (seventh day, first player, third marriage). Self-relative, in turn, are divided into several subgroups. They are due to different relationships: attitude to action ( drilling machine, dinner table, washing machine); relation to time or place (station square, daily task); attitude to another object (coffee table, thundercloud, crystal vase). Sometimes, in figurative use, relative adjectives become qualitative (stone face, peaceful conversation, cordial conversation, steel muscles, golden hands).
There are several derivational types of possessive adjectives: adjectives with suffixes -on-, -ov- (father's hat, squirrel's mink); adjectives with suffixes -sk– (Lermontov's poems, Turgenev's girls); adjectives with the suffix -j– (sheep's wool, wolf's paw); adjectives with the suffix -in- (rat's tail, chicken egg).

The numeral also has a number of distinctive lexical and grammatical features. There are quantitative numerals (eight more than six), numerals of whole units and fractional numerals (one-fifth of crops). There is also such a variety as collective numerals (four, seven).
There are several types of pronouns:
noun pronouns (something, someone, you, I, he, someone, they, yourself);
pronouns-numerals (as many as);
adjective pronouns (mine, yours, which, which, whose).

Within the framework of pronouns, several lexical and grammatical categories are distinguished: personal and personal- demonstrative pronouns(you, we, he, you, me); age pronoun (myself); definitive pronouns (all, every, each, different); demonstrative pronouns (this, that, such, both); possessive pronouns(ours, yours, mine, yours); negative pronouns (none, nobody, nothing); interrogative-relative pronouns (who, what, which, whose, which); indefinite pronouns(someone, someone, something, something, someone, someone, something).

There are two types of adverbs:
derivatives (formed from significant parts of speech);
non-derivatives (about, here, where, then, very, slightly).
Prepositions are distinguished by primitive ones that arose a very long time ago. These include (for, on, from, over, under, through, for, before). There are derivatives, adverbs, verbal, denominative, compound, simple.

Particles bring various semantic and modal shades into sentences. There are several types of particles: clarifying (exactly, precisely, just, exactly), pointing (there, here, this, that), excretory-restrictive (only, only, only, almost), intensifying (already, even, already, and), concessive (nevertheless, after all), interrogative (really, perhaps), incentive (let, come on, but well), affirmative and negative (by no means, exactly), formative and derivational. Interjections distinguish between emotional, incentive).

Sometimes some grammatical forms can be used in the meaning of others. Thus, speech is stylistically colored. Here we are talking about verb forms. For example, the present tense verb can be taken to denote the past. Thus, there is a visual representation of actions. Sometimes a verb in the present tense is used to indicate events that should happen in the near future: "Farewell, beloved city, we're leaving tomorrow for the sea."

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In those cases where the dependent grammatical meaning causes a modification of the meaning of the form, it is one of the causes of variants of the main grammatical meaning, i.e. e. the so-called invariant. It is possible to determine the main grammatical meaning by examining the form in a very wide context or without any context at all. In other words, an invariant is a grammatical meaning that is not subject to change under the influence of a dependent grammatical meaning or any additional conditions.

1.0.5. Morphological means of conveying grammatical meaning. Morphological means of conveying grammatical meaning are contained in the form of a word, in other words, in the complex of its word forms. For inflectional languages, these are the following means:

1) Flexion, i.e. inflectional formant; inflection can be external, i.e. this is a suffix that carries a grammatical load: street-s, approach-ed; inflection can be internal, it is an alternation of vowels: foot- feet; find- found. In modern English there is a special type of inflection capable of forming units larger than one word form, i.e. e. phrases: that aunt and uncle's arrival. This is the so-called monoflex. Regular inflection joins the basics: that uncle's arrival. Monoflexion forms a combination of words, not bases, which allows us to consider it as a syntactic formant (1.2.6).

2) word forms grammatical series can be suppletive; in modern languages, in particular in English, these are surviving forms, but very persistent: to be- am - was; good- letter- the best.

3) Analytical Forms. Analytic forms arose later than inflection. They include at least one service and one lexically filled, but possibly more service components: is coming, has been asked, is being built.

Analytic forms are outwardly similar to phrases, and therefore it is important to point out some criteria for their recognition:

1) The general grammatical meaning is made up of a combination of all the components that make up this form; the auxiliary verb conveys more particular intra-paradigmatic meanings of the person and number (if these meanings are reflected in the form), but the common tense, voice and modal meaning is added only from all components together. At the same time, each component, taken separately, does not carry information about the general meaning of the form. So, has And given do not inform about the meaning of the perfect, just as had, been, sent.

2) Analytical forms have historically developed from syntactic combinations, mainly from certain types of compound predicate. They turned into analytical forms only when their grammatical association became so close that the syntactic relationship between them disappeared. It follows from this that important conclusion: there can be no syntactic relationship between the components of an analytic form.

3) Syntactic relations with the environment in the text are possible only for the entire form as a whole; form components separately cannot have syntactic relations separately. Yes, combined was driving the car element the car is an addition to the entire verb form; in had often remembered element often is a circumstance to the predicate, expressed by the analytical form as a whole.

1. PARTS OF SPEECH
1.1. THEORY OF PARTS OF SPEECH

1.1.1. The theory of classification of parts of speech. The entire vocabulary of English, like all Indo-European languages, is divided into certain lexical and grammatical classes, traditionally called parts of speech. The existence of such classes is not in doubt among any of the linguists, although, as we will see below, their interpretation is not the same for different scientists.

The basic principles of this division into categories, which has existed since ancient times, were explicitly formulated by L.V. Shcherba: this is lexical meaning, morphological form and syntactic functioning. The divisions adopted in different schools do not coincide - both in the number of distinguished parts of speech and in their grouping - but the listed principles really underlie the allocation of word classes. Implicitly, however, in a number of cases (and in the most accepted classifications) the allocation of classes was not based on all of these three attributes simultaneously.

This is especially clear in relation to English, but it is also true in relation to inflectional languages. Below, when describing the individual parts of speech, we will dwell on this issue each time. Here we only mention those examples that are given in the article on this topic by M. I. Steblin-Kamensky. Numerals are united by their lexical meaning - the value of the exact amount. Otherwise, they behave like nouns or adjectives, with the same paradigm and syntactic positions. Pronouns differ in that, having an extremely generalized meaning, they point to any objects, creatures, abstract concepts, without naming them; otherwise they behave like nouns or adjectives. This kind of crossing, incompatible with strict logic, should not be surprising: not everything in the language fits into logical rules.

In linguistics, there are a number of attempts to build such a classification of parts of speech (lexico-grammatical categories) that would meet the basic requirement of logical classification, namely, would be based on one single principle. As we will see below, these attempts did not justify themselves. The classification of parts of speech continues to be controversial issue; there are differences among linguists regarding the number and nomenclature of parts of speech.

G. Sweet, the author of the first scientific grammar of the English language, divides parts of speech into two main groups - changeable and unchangeable. Thus, he considers morphological properties to be the main principle of classification. Within the group of declinables, he adhered to the traditional division - nouns, adjectives, verbs. Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are combined into a group of invariables ("indeclinables").

Along with this classification, however, Sweet proposes a grouping based on the syntactic functioning of certain classes of words. So, the group of nominal words (noun-words) includes, in addition to nouns, similar in functioning "nominal" pronouns (noun-pronouns), "nominal" numerals (noun-numerals), infinitive and gerund; the group of adjective words includes, in addition to adjectives, "adjective" pronouns (adjective-pronouns), "adjective" numerals (adjective-numerals) participles. The verb group includes personal forms and verbalities; here again the morphological principle turns out to be leading; all impersonal forms, as well as personal ones, have verbal categories of tense and voice.

Thus, verbals - infinitive and gerund - turn out to be classified as nominal words on the basis of their syntactic functioning, and according to their morphological properties, they also appear in the verb group.

As we can see, Sweet saw the inconsistency of the morphological and syntactic properties of parts of speech; but his attempt to create a coherent grouping led to the fact that, according to syntactic feature discharges, lexically and morphologically united, were fragmented, and, on the other hand, fragments of discharges, lexically and morphologically dissimilar, were combined. As for the “invariable” group, completely heterogeneous elements are combined in it: adverbs that are members of the sentence, and conjunctions, prepositions and interjections that are not; prepositions that function within predicative units, and conjunctions that connect predicative units.

O. Jespersen, a Danish linguist, author of the "Philosophy of Grammar", the multi-volume "Grammar of Modern English" and a number of other works, was fully aware of the difficulty of reconciling two basic principles - form and function, i.e. e. morphology and syntax without even considering the lexical meaning. He rightly notes that if morphology (changeability and immutability) is taken as the basis for classification, then words such as must, the, then, for, enough must be assigned to the same class; as shown above, this is indeed the weakest side of the Sweet classification.

Jespersen proposed a dual system: along with writing down the traditional parts of speech, which he considers in their morphological design and conceptual content, these same classes are analyzed from the point of view of their functioning in syntactic combinations (sentences and phrases). This or that word can be primary (primary), i.e. be the core of a phrase, or the subject of a sentence; secondary (secondary), i.e. directly defining the primary, and tertiary (tertiary), i.e. subordinate to the secondary. Yes, in the phrase a furiously barking dog noun dog- primary, barking, directly defining it is secondary, and the adverb furiously- tertiary. This is the so-called three-rank theory; Jespersen elaborates further on the relations that are conveyed by these ranks, for which see below, in the syntax section (2.2.6). However, Jespersen does not reject either the traditional division into parts of speech or the traditional syntactic positions. Thus, the theory of three ranks finds itself in a somewhat intermediate position, between morphology and syntax, although, as can be seen from the above, it is closer to syntax. It is probably fair to say that the theory of three ranks is one of the first attempts to give a unified classification based on the position (function) of the word in units larger than the word; however, morphological classification, syntactic functions and three ranks overlap each other all the time, intertwining and creating redundant, unnecessary units of analysis. Among the works whose authors are trying to find a unified principle for classifying parts of speech, special attention deserves the book Ch. K. Fries "The Structure of the English Language" (Ch. Fries. "The Structure of English"). Freese rejects the traditional classification and tries to build a class system based on the position of a word in a sentence. By means of substitution tables, Freese identifies four classes of words, traditionally called nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Thus, class 1 includes all words that can occupy the position of a word concert in a sentence The concert was good and words tax in offer The clerk remembered the tax; class 2 words take word position is/was, remembered in the same sentences; class 3 words are in position good in models The (good) concert was good, and left class 4 - in position there in the model

The is/was there

These models are broken down into subtypes, which we do not present here. Freese is consistent with the positional principle, and thus not only nouns belong to class 1, as can be deduced at first glance from the above diagram. Any word that can take a stand concert in the given example, belongs to class 1; as Freeze points out, class 1 includes any words that can take a position before words of class 2, i.e. e. before the verb in the personal form; yes, words man, he, the others, another belong to class 1, since they are able to take a position before the word of the second class came.

Creme of four classes, Freese distinguishes 15 groups. They also use a consistently positional principle, and words of the most diverse types fall into these groups. "Fries calls these groups "function words", and, indeed, some of the words included in these groups are, in general, very close to those categories that we we call the official parts of speech (1.11-15).

Yes, in a group BUT are all words capable of occupying a position the, i.e. to be a definition, or a determinant. Here is a list of words of one group column BUT, given by Freese: the, no, your, their, both, few, much, John "s, our, four, twenty ...

Freese points out that some of these words may appear in the position of class 1 words in other utterances, but this should not confuse the reader; the important thing is that they can all take a position the. We are not we will list here all the groups; we only point out that there are groups that include one or two words (groups C, H, N include words not, there - there is, please respectively). Morphological properties, as we see, are completely ignored, but syntactic functions, strictly speaking, are not taken into account: for example, modal verbs separated from class 2 (full-valued verbs); group co-modal verbs IN act in the same predicative function, as well as lexically full-valued verbs.

It can be seen from the foregoing that Freese's attempt at classifying, while interesting in concept, does not reach its goal; he does not actually create a classification, and the proposed subdivision turns out to be very confusing, classes and groups mutually overlap, the same word appears in several digits. At the same time, Friz's material contains interesting data on the distribution of word categories and their syntactic valency. The calculation of the relative frequency of classes and groups is also interesting: groups containing mainly service parts of speech have a high frequency.

Freese is the only structuralist who tried to create a classification of lexico-grammatical categories on the basis of one consistently applied feature. J. Trager and G. Smith, proposed a double classification - according to morphological paradigmatics and according to syntactic functions. This dual analysis is not absolutely parallel, but that is why it does not create a clear picture.

Below we will focus on the classifications proposed by the structuralists G. Gleason and J. Sledd.

G. Gleason rightly criticizes the usual school definitions of parts of speech based on their semantic content; in doing so, however, he overlooks the fact that the classification itself is implicitly based not on these definitions, but on the three features discussed at the beginning of this section. Gleason proposes a classification based on two formal features - morphological form and word order. He divides the entire vocabulary into two large groups: a group that has formal signs of inflection, and a group that does not have such signs. The first group naturally includes nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. However, strictly following the sign of the presence of a paradigm, Gleason excludes from this group all those words that, for one reason or another, do not have this paradigm. Yes, adjective beautiful does not belong to this group because it has no form *beautifuller, *beautifullest. The second group includes classes distinguished by positional features, but it also includes the words of paradigmatic groups excluded from them, as described above. So, beautiful, which occupies the same positions as the adjective fine, belongs to the second group; it belongs to a wider class called "adjectivals", which includes adjectives proper ("adjectives"). By the same token, "pronominals" is a broader class than "pronouns". Classes that occur in the same positions form "constituent" classes. However, Gleason does not define or list them exactly; it is also unclear whether he includes auxiliary parts of speech in these groups, although, apparently, he considers prepositions to be a special class.

It is easy to see that the classification proposed by Gleason is even less systematized than that of Freese: one and the same word can simultaneously belong to two classes, others to one; classes are not in a system relationship to one another.

J. Sledd's classification is very close to Gleason's principles. He also distinguishes between "inflectional" and "positional" classes. Basic positional classes: nominals, verbals, adjectivals, adverbials; they are joined by eight smaller classes: auxiliary verbs, determiners, prepositions, conjunctions, various categories of pronouns. Here we find the same vague criteria as those of Gleason; some pronouns occupy the same positions as nouns, but are allocated to a special class; interrogative pronouns do not differ positionally from others (for example, demonstratives), but are clearly distinguished into a special class on the basis of their lexical meaning, etc. Sledd's classification is as unconvincing as the previous ones.

At the same time, one cannot ignore two very positive points in the theories of Gleason and Sledd. First, both of them note the importance of derivational affixes as indicators of parts of speech; secondly, and most importantly, both of these linguists drew attention to the heterogeneity of the properties of certain units within certain lexico-grammatical categories. It is on this that their proposed division into narrower groups is based, containing those units that, by all their features, have the right to be attributed to a given part of speech, and wider ones, which include units that have only a part of the necessary features.

Thus, all attempts to create a classification of language units based on a single principle have failed. The traditional classification is as good as (though perhaps not better than) anything that has been tried to replace it, and has the advantage of being widely known. We will therefore continue to proceed from the traditional classification, with one significant modification in the treatment of parts of speech within each group.

1.1.2. The theory of field structure of parts of speech. The complexity of the ratio of units within each part of speech, which was mentioned above and which was noticed by Gleason and Sledd, fits well into the theory of the grammatical field developed by V. G. Admoni on the material of the German language and set out in the book by G. S. Shchur “Field Theory in linguistics” (M., 1974) 1 . The morphological field theory is as follows. In each part of speech there are units that fully possess all the features of this part of speech; it is, so to speak, its core. But there are also units that do not have all the features of a given part of speech, although they belong to it. The field, therefore, includes central and peripheral elements, it is non-uniform in composition. The task of the linguist is to determine the composition of the field, to identify the central and peripheral elements and to determine in what ways they are close to other parts of speech.

1.1.3. Parts of speech significant and official. The largest subdivision of parts of speech is two large groups: significant and auxiliary parts of speech. significant parts

1 Semantic field theory was previously developed by I. Trier, L. Weisgerber and other Western linguists. The theory of the functional lexico-grammatical field is associated mainly with the names of Soviet linguists (E. V. Gulyga and E. I. Shendels, A. V. Bondarko, M. M. Gukhman), V, G, Admoni considers proper morphological fields, speeches include such units that have a lexical meaning, i.e. the concepts are called: table, dog, joy, strength; to bring, to cry, to enumerate; big, difficult; soon, well. In other words, they denote permanent denotations. Having a lexical meaning, the words of significant parts of speech are able to occupy one or another syntactic position in a sentence, i.e. function as members of a sentence, and also be the core of a phrase. Thus, when delimiting significant parts of speech from service ones, lexical and syntactic criteria coincide. Morphological properties also to a certain extent join them: only significant parts of speech have inflection. However, among significant parts of speech, not all have an inflectional paradigm; therefore, the morphological feature is not restrictive in all cases.

Service parts of speech do not have the property of being the subject of thought, i.e. e. do not have independent lexical meaning. Thus, such units as of, and, since, the, for they do not name separate concepts (cf. such words as relation, meaning etc., which name these concepts). The purpose of the service parts of speech in the language is to indicate certain relationships between the words of the significant parts of speech, between sentences or phrases, or to clarify the grammatical meaning of the significant parts of speech: the color of the sky, dogs and cats, the dog, a dog.

The allocation of certain parts of speech, both significant and official, is debatable; there are such “basic” parts of speech, the existence of which no linguist doubts (for example, a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb); among the service parts of speech, there is no doubt the existence of such categories as prepositions, conjunctions. On the other hand, much remains doubtful regarding the legitimacy of singling out the words of the category of state and, in part, modal words in significant parts of speech; the boundaries of particles in the group of auxiliary parts of speech are not entirely clear. Not all linguists agree with the allocation of articles as a service part of speech; it may be doubtful to classify the postpositive as a service part of speech.

It is necessary to clearly distinguish between service parts of speech and service words. Service words belong to significant parts of speech, but under certain conditions they lose their lexical content and retain only their grammatical function. Auxiliary verbs are the most typical case of this kind. These are verbs capable of performing with their own lexical content, for example, the verb have in a sentence I have a new television set. However, in the form of the perfect, the same verb loses its lexical meaning, acting as an auxiliary : I have lost my gloves. At the same time, it does not turn into a service part of speech, but functions as a service word.

NOUN

The grammatical meaning of a noun.

A noun is a significant part of speech that has the meaning of objectivity. Objectivity - a grammatical meaning, due to which verbal units - the names of both objects proper and non-objects (abstract concepts, actions, properties, etc.) - function in the language in a similar way to the names of objects proper. Derivational means of verbal, adjective nouns create an opportunity for the names of states, properties, qualities, etc. to function syntactically along with the names of objects: movement, strangeness, activity. These formations are called syntactic derivatives. Their morphological functioning is in many cases limited: not all syntactic derivatives are able to participate in the morphological categories of the name. This is one of the most important features of the field structure of a noun.

1.2.2. Word formation of a noun. The inflectional apparatus of nouns is very poor. As for its morphemic structure, it should be noted here that a one-syllable structure is very common, in which the root, stem and word coincide in sound design (although they differ functionally). At the same time, the noun has a word-formation apparatus, which is much more diverse than the apparatus of inflection. In grammatical terms, this is important because suffixes, in addition to their semantic function, are indicators that a given word belongs to nouns.

The suffix structure is observed mainly in two large groups: in person nouns and in abstract nouns.

The following face suffixes are most characteristic: -er, -ist, -ess, -her- singer, naturalist, authoress, legatee. Of the suffixes of abstract nouns, the most characteristic are: -ness, -ion, (-ation, -ition), -ity, -ism, -ance, -ment- lateness, rotation, ignition, security, socialism, elegance, movement.

Note: Only the most common suffixes are listed here. The frequency is set according to the book "Structure English name noun "(M., 1975).

1.2.3. Noun subclasses. Nouns are divided into common nouns and proper nouns. Common names are a generalized name for any object denoted by them: river can refer to any river, dog- to any dog pleasure- to any feeling of pleasure. Proper names, in contrast, do not have a generalizing conceptual content; they are the name, the nickname of individual individual creatures or objects, they are assigned specifically to this individual, but do not apply to other similar phenomena. So, John- most likely the name of a male person, but, in fact, it can also be assigned to a dog, elephant, etc .; spot can be the name of a dog, cat, horse, etc.; the Cutty Sark- the name of the famous English clipper (high-speed ocean vessel), but it does not contain an indication of this reference and could be the name of a cafe, cinema, cottage. Proper names are not devoid of grammatical categories inherent in common nouns; However, grammar is primarily concerned with common nouns that have a generalizing meaning.

Since nouns objectively name any phenomena of linguistic reality, they are represented by a wide variety of lexical groups. Interacting with grammatical categories, these groups create a branched field structure of the noun.

The set of morphological grammatical categories of a noun is very poor. Undoubtedly there is a category of number. The existence of the category of case is extremely controversial. The grammatical category of gender does not exist in English.

1.2.4. The problem of the category of the genus. The category of gender in English disappeared completely by the end of the Middle English period. The designation of biological sex exists in the language, but purely lexical or word-building means are used: boy- girl, cock- hen, bull- cow; waiter- waitress, lion- lioness; he-goat- she-goat. The same is observed in a number of Indo-European languages ​​when denoting gender differences: teacher-nitsa, doctor-sha, tiger-itsa; German Lowe- Lowin, Lehrer- Lehrerin.

B. Strang, author of Modern English Structure, and several other authors argue that English has a category of noun gender on the grounds that it is possible to substitute a name with a pronoun indicating biological sex or inanimateness: he, she, it. This point of view seems completely unacceptable, since we are talking about the substitution of the name by another part of speech and the transfer of the feature of this other part of speech to a noun that does not have this feature. And for pronouns, the indicated meaning is purely lexical and has nothing to do with the grammatical meaning.

1.2.5. Number category. The main meaning of the category of number is the opposition of singleness and plurality of objects. Multiplicity means more than one. The singular number is transmitted in the base form, i.e. e. a form that has no endings and coincides with the stem (1.0.1.) The plural is indicated in writing by the formant -s, which is realized as a series of allomorphs - /z/, /s/, /iz/ depending on the nature of the final sound of the base (dogs/z/, potatoes /z/; books, cats/s/; classes, bushes/iz/). Such is the productive inflectional model of the form plural; it can be called an "open model", since new words that appear in the language are formed in the plural in this way.

Authors seeking to maximally formalize the description of the language, in particular structuralists, usually consider the absence of an ending in the singular as the presence of a zero suffix. but null suffix is not a morpheme, i.e. a linearly distinguishable segment having a sound form (1.0.1). It seems, however, possible to speak of the zero exponent (1.0.1) without writing it as a morpheme.

Along with the open model, there are a number of closed groups; the nouns included in them form plural forms with the help of unproductive means assigned only to these nouns. These are suffixes that function only within these groups: a) suffix -ep, attached to two nouns - oxen, children; b) suffixes of Latin plural forms, borrowed together with those nouns that they formed in Latin : -i (nucleus- nuclei); -a (stratum- strata); -ae (antenna- antennae). The list of these nouns is small, and, what is very important, nouns that are in wide use appear in Proper English forms: along with termini- the form terminuses; as well as antennae- antennas. Descriptivists Harris, Hockett and others consider the suffix -ep as an allomorph (variant) of a morpheme s/z based on their same function; Obviously, if we accept this point of view, the above endings of Latin borrowings should also be included here. Such a point of view is possible only if the morpheme is defined as a purely functional element, regardless of its sound design. Meanwhile, the allomorph is established on the basis of the sound and semantic community (1.0.1). On the other hand, the functional generality various suffixes the plural cannot be denied. We propose the term "functional synonyms", which will denote certain grammatical means that are functionally similar, but are not allomorphs.

It only seems at first glance that a noun is a very simple part of speech. In fact, it has many variants of spelling, pronunciation and use. The general grammatical meaning of the noun and all the most important points will be noted in this article. Everything you need to know about this part of speech will be outlined here so as not to make stupid mistakes in pronunciation and writing. Some do not know what is the role of a noun in a sentence. We will understand in more detail in our article.

What is this part of speech

First of all, you should analyze the general grammatical meaning of the noun. There shouldn't be any problems here. Since everyone knows that a noun refers to independent parts of speech and denotes an object. You can ask him only two questions: who? or what?

It should be remembered that a noun can mean:

• things (for example, a computer, wardrobe, telephone);
• people (woman, man, child, youth);
• substances (tea, borscht, milk);
• all living beings (dog, horse, tiger, microbe);
• various events and natural phenomena (hurricane, rain, war);
• various actions, properties of substances, features (beauty, jump, anger).

Thus, the general grammatical meaning of the noun will not cause difficulties in learning. The rule is easy to remember. All elementary school children know him.

Discharges

If the general grammatical meaning of the noun is clear, then you can proceed to the next section, which will tell you more about this part of speech. The noun is divided into four categories:

• Own.
• Common nouns.
• Animated.
• Inanimate.

First of all, you should consider your own and common nouns.

From the first name, we can conclude that proper nouns are specific names that can only denote one object or person and nothing else.

This includes not only the names of people, but also the names of animals, as well as the names of the ancient gods, which students often forget about. Also included in this list are the names of cities and countries, as well as other geographical objects. Further names of planets, galaxies and all other astronomical names. Also, proper nouns include the names of all holidays, the names of enterprises and organizations, public services etc.

It is important not to lose the boundaries between the names Since the Russian language allows the transition of a common noun into a proper one and vice versa.

Next come the animated and inanimate nouns. Here the situation is a little simpler. In this section, the main thing to remember is that only people and animals can be animated. All other nouns are inanimate.

It is also worth remembering that when animate noun is plural, then the form of the accusative and genitive cases are the same. And for inanimate in the plural, the form of accusative and nominative is the same.

Case category

This section provides for the division of a noun into inflected and indeclinable. The second group includes a small number of words that have the same form in any case. All other words are declined by cases and change their word form.

Number category

The noun has three groups of numbers:

• words that have two forms: both singular and plural: finger - fingers;
• words that appear only in the singular: cereals, peas, carrots;
• noun only in the plural: day, perfume, rake.

Genus category

The category of gender has nouns that can be put in the singular form. They can be divided into masculine, feminine and neuter. There is a separate group of nouns that belong to the common gender, but there are not so many of them.

To determine the gender of a noun, it is necessary to coordinate it with an adjective, verb, or participle.

An interesting category is the common gender. This includes about 200 words of the Russian language. All of them are in most cases related to colloquial speech. These are words that are in the nominative singular and end in -a. Usually they characterize an object or person on some basis. They give speech some colors and emotions. To make it clearer, these words include: drunkard, glutton, crybaby and others.

In Russian, there are some words, the gender of which is problematic to determine. It is recommended to simply remember such words so as not to make mistakes. One such word is coffee. Many refer to it as neuter, but no. "My coffee" is always masculine.

declination

In Russian, there are three nouns into which nouns are divided. Determining the declension of a noun is quite simple, you just need to remember the gender category and the ending.

So, the first declension includes nouns masculine and female, which in the nominative case have the ending -а, -я. The second declension is masculine nouns that do not have endings, or, as Russian language teachers say, they have a zero ending and a neuter gender with the ending -o, -e. And the third declension is nouns of the female gender, which do not have an ending.

The use of nouns in artistic speech

The use of nouns in artistic speech- this is very important point. Unfortunately, school program does not provide for the consideration of such a topic, but it is extremely necessary for students. Often in high school, students begin to make mistakes in essays and find it difficult when the teacher asks to find a metaphor in the text that is expressed by a noun.

In general, in a literary text a noun can be not only a metaphor. It can give the text certain colors, emotions, expression. Teachers need to focus on this to make it easier for children to compose essays and analyze literary texts.

Output

The article described in detail the general grammatical meaning of the noun, its categories, declensions and usage options.

You should pay attention to nouns only in the plural, such words need to be known by heart. Pay special attention to gender and declensions.

If you take the process of learning the language with all responsibility, then you will not have serious problems.

Words act as building material for language. To convey thoughts, we use sentences that consist of combinations of words. In order to be linked into combinations and sentences, many words change their form.

The section of linguistics that studies the forms of words, types of phrases and sentences is called grammar.

Grammar has two parts: morphology and syntax.

Morphology- a section of grammar that studies the word and its change.

Syntax- a section of grammar that studies word combinations and sentences.

In this way, word is an object of study in lexicology and grammar. Lexicology is more interested in the lexical meaning of the word - its correlation with certain phenomena of reality, that is, when defining a concept, we try to find its distinctive feature.

Grammar, on the other hand, studies the word from the point of view of generalizing its features and properties. If the difference between words is important for vocabulary House And smoke, table And chair, then for grammar, all these four words are absolutely the same: they form the same forms of cases and numbers, have the same grammatical meanings.

Grammatical meaning e is a characteristic of a word from the point of view of belonging to a certain part of speech, the most general meaning inherent in a number of words, independent of their real material content.

For example, words smoke And House have different lexical meanings: House- this is a residential building, as well as (collected) people living in it; smoke- aerosol formed by products of incomplete combustion of substances (materials). And the grammatical meanings of these words are the same: noun, common noun, inanimate, masculine, II declension, each of these words can be determined by an adjective, change by cases and numbers, act as a member of a sentence.

Grammatical meanings are characteristic not only of words, but also of larger grammatical units: phrases, constituent parts complex sentence.

Material expression of grammatical meaning is an grammatical tool. Most often, grammatical meaning is expressed in affixes. It can be expressed with the help of function words, alternation of sounds, changes in the place of stress and word order, intonation.

Each grammatical meaning finds its expression in the corresponding grammatical form.

Grammatical forms words can be simple (synthetic) and complex (analytical).

Simple (synthetic) grammatical form involves the expression of lexical and grammatical meanings in the same word, within a word (consists of one word): read- the verb is in the past tense.

When the grammatical meaning is expressed outside the lexeme, complex (analytical) form(combination of a significant word with an official): I will read, let's read! In Russian, the analytic forms include the future tense form of verbs imperfect form: I will write.

Individual grammatical meanings are combined into systems. For example, singular and plural values ​​are combined into a system of number values. In such cases, we are talking about grammatical category numbers. Thus, we can talk about the grammatical category of tense, the grammatical category of gender, the grammatical category of mood, the grammatical category of aspect, etc.

Each grammatical category has a number of grammatical forms. The set of all possible forms of a given word is called the paradigm of the word. For example, the paradigm of nouns usually consists of 12 forms, for adjectives - of 24.

The paradigm is:

universal– all forms (full);

incomplete- there are no forms;

private according to a certain grammatical category: declension paradigm, mood paradigm.

Lexical and grammatical meanings are in interaction: a change in the lexical meaning of a word leads to a change in both its grammatical meaning and form. For example, the adjective voiced in the phrase ringing voice is qualitative (has forms of degrees of comparison: voiced, louder, most voiced). It's the same adjective in the phrase media is an relative adjective(voiced, i.e. formed with the participation of the voice). In this case, this adjective has no degrees of comparison.

And vice versa grammatical meaning some words may directly depend on their lexical meaning. For example, the verb run away in the meaning of "move quickly" is used only as an imperfective verb: He ran for quite some time until he collapsed completely exhausted. Lexical meaning(“to escape”) also determines another grammatical meaning - the meaning of the perfect form: The prisoner escaped from prison.

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