How to understand a common noun. The difference between a proper name and a common noun

The use of terminology in defining parts of speech and their varieties is a common thing for philologists. For a simple person, often all sorts of tricky names seem to be something unclear and complicated. Many schoolchildren are not given abstract terms denoting varieties of parts of speech, and they turn to their parents for help. Adults have to look again in textbooks or search for information on the Internet.

Today we will try to tell in a simple and understandable Russian language what proper and common nouns are, how they differ, how to find them and use them correctly in speech and in the text.

What is the part of speech?

Before determining the part of speech in Russian, you need to correctly ask a question to the word and determine what it means. If the word you have chosen matches the questions “who?” or “what?”, but it denotes an object, then it is a noun. This simple truth is easily learned even by schoolchildren, many adults remember. But the question of whether a proper or common noun is in front of you can already confuse a person. Let's try to figure out what these linguistic definitions mean.

Answer in meaning

All words belonging to the part of speech we are considering are divided into several types and categories according to different criteria. One of the classifications is the division into proper and common nouns. It is not so difficult to distinguish between them, you just need to understand the meaning of the word. If a separate specific person or some single object is called, then it is your own, and if the meaning of the word indicates the common name of many similar objects, persons or phenomena, then you have a common noun.

Let's explain this with examples. The word "Alexandra" is proper because it denotes the name of an individual. The words "girl, girl, woman" are common nouns because they are a common name for all females. The difference becomes clear, but it lies in the meaning.

Names and nicknames

It is customary to classify several groups of words as proper nouns.

The first is the name, patronymic and surname of a person, as well as his nickname or pseudonym. This also includes cat, dog and nicknames of other animals. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, Murka, Pushinka, Sharik, Druzhok - these names distinguish one particular creature from others of their own kind. If we pick up a common noun for the same objects, then we can say: a poet, a cat, a dog.

Names on the map

The second group of words are the names of various geographical objects. Let's give examples: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Washington, Neva, Volga, Rhine, Russia, France, Norway, Europe, Africa, Australia. For comparison, let's give a common noun corresponding to the given names: city, river, country, continent.

space objects

The third group includes various astronomical names. These are, for example, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, the Solar System, the Milky Way. Each of the above names is a proper name, and you can pick up a common noun generalized in meaning to it. Examples of these objects correspond with the words planet, galaxy.

Names and brands

Another group of words that belong to their own are the various names of something - shops, cafes, literary works, paintings, magazines, newspapers, and so on. In the phrase "shop" Magnet "" the first is a common noun, and the second is a proper noun. Let us give more similar examples: the Chocolate Girl cafe, the novel War and Peace, the painting Pond, the Murzilka magazine, the Arguments and Facts newspaper, the Sedov sailboat, the Babaevsky plant, the Gefest gas stove, Consultant Plus system, Chardonnay wine, Napoleon cake, United Russia party, Nika award, Alyonka chocolate, Ruslan aircraft.

Spelling Features

Since proper names indicate a specific single object, marking it from all other similar ones, they also stand out in writing - they are written with a capital letter. Children learn this at the very beginning of schooling: last names, first names, patronymics, symbols on the map, animal names, other names of something are capitalized. Examples: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Vanka, Ivan Kalita, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Novgorod, Angara, Cyprus, Turkey, Australia, Zhuchka, Fluff, Murzik.

There is one more feature of writing proper nouns, it concerns the names of factories, firms, enterprises, ships, periodicals (newspapers and magazines), works of art and literature, feature films, documentaries and other films, performances, cars, drinks, cigarettes and other similar words. Such names are written not only with a capital letter, but also enclosed in quotation marks. In philological science, they are called their own names. Examples: Niva car, Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, Mayak radio, Ruslan and Lyudmila poem, Chanel perfume, Za Rulem magazine, Troika cigarettes, Fanta drink, Enlightenment publishing house , Abba group, Kinotavr festival.

A proper noun begins with a capital letter, a common noun begins with a lowercase letter. This simple rule often helps a person in determining spelling norms. This rule is easy to remember, but sometimes there are difficulties. As you know, the Russian language is rich in its exceptions to every rule. Such complex cases are not included in the school curriculum, and therefore, in the tasks of the Russian language textbook, even younger students can easily determine by the first letter in a word whether a proper or common noun is in front of them.

Transition of a proper name into a common noun and vice versa

As noted above, a common noun is a generalized name for something. But the Russian language is a living, changing system, and sometimes various transformations and changes take place in it: sometimes common nouns become proper ones. For example: earth is land, Earth is a planet in the solar system. Universal human values, denoted by common nouns love, faith and hope, have long become female names - Faith, Hope, Love. In the same way, some animal nicknames and other names arise: Ball, Snowball, etc.

The reverse process also occurs in Russian, when proper nouns become common nouns. So, from the own name of the Italian physicist Volta, the unit of electrical voltage, the volt, was named. The name of the master of musical instruments Saks became a common noun "saxophone". The Dutch city of Bruges gave its name to the word "pants". The names of the great gunsmiths - Mauser, Colt, Nagant - became the names of pistols. And there are many such examples in the language.

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- the general meaning of the subject, everything that can be said about this subject: this 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.

Mum cooks 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).

Mum- 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:

Mum, I need your help!

• By lexical Nouns can be of two types:

1. Common nouns- these 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, names of books, films, songs, ships, organizations, historical events, and the like: 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 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 a noun is singular, then it cannot be plural, 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 of nouns can exist only 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.

Many nouns denoting persons, objects and phenomena are usually classified in accordance with the object of naming - this is how the division into a common noun and a proper name appeared.

Common nouns VS onyms

Common nouns (otherwise - appellatives) name objects that have a certain common set of features and belong to a particular class of objects or phenomena. For example: boy, peach, sturgeon, meeting, mourning, pluralism, uprising.

Proper names, or onyms, call single objects or individuals, for example: writer Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, city Essentuki, painting " girl with peaches", TV center " Ostankino».

Proper names and common nouns, examples of which we have given above, are traditionally opposed to each other, as they have different meanings and do not coincide in the sphere of their functioning.

Typology of common names

The common noun in Russian forms special lexical and grammatical categories, the words in which are grouped depending on the type of the naming object:

1. Specific names (they are also called "concrete-objective") serve as the names of persons, living beings, objects. These words change in numbers and are combined with cardinal numbers: teacher - teachers - the first teacher; chick - chicks; cube - cubes.

2. Abstract, or abstract, nouns name the state, sign, action, result: success, hope, creativity, merit.

3. Real, or material, nouns (they are also called "concrete-material") - words specific in semantics that name certain substances. These words most often do not have a correlative plural form. There are the following groups of real nouns: nominations of food products ( butter, sugar, tea), drug names ( iodine, streptocide), names of chemicals ( fluorine, beryllium), minerals and metals ( potassium, magnesium, iron), other substances ( rubble, snow). Such common nouns, examples of which are given above, can be used in the plural form. This is appropriate when it comes to types and varieties of a substance: wines, cheeses; about the space that is filled with this substance: sands of the Sahara, neutral waters.

4. Collective nouns name a certain set of homogeneous objects, the unity of persons or other living beings: foliage, students, nobility.

"Shifts" in the meaning of common names

Sometimes a common noun includes in its meaning an indication not only of a certain class of objects, but also of some very specific object within its class. This happens if:

• The individual characteristics of the object are ignored as such: for example, there is a folk sign “ Kill a spider - forty sins will be forgiven”, and in this context, it does not mean any particular spider, but absolutely any.
• In the described situation, one specific object of this class is meant: for example, “ Come sit on the bench» - the interlocutors know exactly where the meeting point is.
• The individual features of an object can be described with explanatory definitions: for example: “ I can't forget the wonderful day we met”, - the speaker stands out a specific day among a series of other days.

The transition of nouns from onyms to appellatives

Separate proper names are sometimes used to generically designate a number of homogeneous objects, then they turn into common nouns. Examples: Dzhimorda, Don Juan; Napoleon cake; colt, mauser, revolver; ohm, amp.

Proper names that have become appellatives are called eponyms. In modern speech, they are usually used to jokingly or derogatoryly speak about someone: Aesculapius(doctor), pele(football player) Schumacher(racer, lover of fast driving).

An animate common noun can also become an eponym if any product or institution is called like that: sweets " Bear in the north", butter " Kuban Burenka", restaurant " Senator».

Nomenclature units and trademarks-eponyms

The class of eponyms also includes any proper name of an object or phenomenon, which begins to be used as a common noun for the entire class of similar objects. Examples of eponyms are words such as " diapers, tampax, xerox, in modern speech used as a common noun.

The transition of the own trademark naming into the category of eponyms eliminates the value and uniqueness in the perception of the manufacturer's brand. Yes, an American corporation Xerox, for the first time in 1947, which introduced the world to a device for copying documents, “etched out” the common noun from the English language xerox, replacing it with photocopier and photocopy. In Russian, the words " xerox, xerox, xerox and even " xerify" turned out to be more tenacious, since there is no more suitable word; " photocopy" and its derivatives are not very good options.

A similar situation with the product of the American multinational company Procter & Gamble - diapers Pampers. Any diapers from another company with similar moisture-absorbing qualities are called diapers.

Spelling of proper and common names

The common noun rule governing the spelling norm in Russian recommends writing with a lowercase letter: kid, grasshopper, dream, prosperity, secularization.

Onims also have their own spelling system, however, simple:

These nouns are usually capitalized: Tatyana Larina, Paris, Academician Koroleva street, dog Sharik.

When used with a generic word, the onym forms its own name, denoting the name of a trademark, event, institution, enterprise, etc.; such naming is capitalized and enclosed in quotation marks: VDNKh metro station, Chicago musical, Eugene Onegin novel, Russian Booker award.

There is a huge variety of phenomena in the world. For each of them in the language there is a name. If it names a whole group of objects, then such a word is. When there is a need to name one object from a number of homogeneous ones, then the language has its own names for this.

nouns

Common nouns are such nouns that immediately designate a whole class of objects united by some common features. For example:

• Each water stream can be called in one word - a river.
• Any plant with a trunk and branches is a tree.
• All animals of gray color, large size, with a trunk instead of a nose are called elephants.
• Giraffe - any animal with a long neck, small horns and high growth.

Proper names are nouns that distinguish one object from the entire class of similar phenomena. For example:

• The dog's name is Buddy.
• My cat's name is Murka.
• This river is the Volga.
• The deepest lake is Baikal.

When we know what our own name is, we can perform the following task.

Practice #1

Which nouns are proper nouns?

Moscow; city; Earth; planet; bug; dog; Vlad; boy; radio station; "Lighthouse".

Capital letter in proper nouns

As can be seen from the first task, proper names, unlike common nouns, are written with a capital letter. Sometimes it happens that the same word is written first with a small letter, then with a capital one:

• bird eagle, the city of Oryol, the ship "Eagle";
• strong love, girl Love;
• early spring, lotion "Spring";
• riverside willow, restaurant "Iva".

If you know what your own name is, then it’s easy to understand the reason for this phenomenon: words denoting single objects are capitalized in order to separate them from others of the same kind.

Quotation marks for own names

In order to know how to correctly use quotation marks in your own names, you need to learn the following: proper names denoting phenomena in the world created by human hands are isolated. In this case, quotation marks act as isolation marks:

• newspaper "New World";
• do-it-yourself magazine;
• factory "Amta";
• hotel "Astoria";
• ship "Swift".

The transition of words from common nouns to proper ones and vice versa

It cannot be said that the distinction between the categories of proper names and common nouns is unshakable. Sometimes common nouns become proper names. We talked about the rules for writing them above. What are your own names? Examples of transition from the category of common nouns:

• cream "Spring";
• perfume "Jasmine";
• cinema "Zarya";
• magazine "Worker".

Proper names also easily become generalized names of homogeneous phenomena. Below are our own names, which can already be called common nouns:

• These are my young don Juan!
• We aim at Newtons, but we don’t know the formulas ourselves;
• You are all Pushkins until you write the dictation.

Practice #2

Which sentences contain proper nouns?

1. We decided to meet at the "Ocean".

2. In the summer I swam in the real ocean.

3. Anton decided to give his beloved the perfume "Rose".

4. The rose was cut in the morning.

5. We are all Socrates in our kitchen.

6. This idea was first put forward by Socrates.

Classification of proper names

It would seem that it is easy to learn what a proper name is, but you still need to repeat the main thing - proper names are assigned to one object from a whole series. It is advisable to classify the following series of phenomena:

A number of phenomena	Own names, examples
Names of people, surnames, patronymics	Ivan, Vanya, Ilyushka, Tatyana, Tanechka, Tanyukha, Ivanov, Lysenko, Gennady Ivanovich Belykh, Alexander Nevsky.
Animal names	Bobik, Murka, Dawn, Ryaba, Karyukha, Gray neck.
place names	Lena, Sayans, Baikal, Azov, Black, Novosibirsk.
Names of objects created by human hands	"Red October", "Rot-front", "Aurora", "Health", "Kis-kiss", "Chanel No. 6", "Kalashnikov".

The names of people, surnames, patronymics, nicknames of animals are animate nouns, and geographical names and designations of everything created by man are inanimate. This is how their own names are characterized from the point of view of the category of animation.

Proper names in the plural

It is necessary to dwell on one point, which is due to the semantics of the studied features of proper names in that they are rarely used in the plural. You can use them to refer to multiple items as long as they have the same proper name:

The surname can be used in the plural. number in two cases. First, if it denotes a family, people who are related:

• It was customary for the Ivanovs to gather for dinner with the whole family.
• The Karenins lived in St. Petersburg.
• The Zhurbin dynasty had at all a hundred years of experience at a metallurgical plant.

Secondly, if namesakes are called:

• Hundreds of Ivanovs can be found in the register.
• They are my full namesakes: Grigoriev Alexandra.

- inconsistent definitions

One of the tasks of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language requires knowledge of what your own name is. Graduates are required to establish correspondences between sentences and those allowed in them. One of these is a violation in the construction of a sentence with an inconsistent application. The fact is that the proper name, which is an inconsistent application, does not change in cases with the main word. Examples of such sentences with grammatical errors are given below:

• Lermontov was not enthusiastic about his poem "The Demon" (the poem "The Demon").
• Dostoevsky described the spiritual crisis of his time in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" (in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov").
• A lot is said and written about the film "Taras Bulba" (About the film "Taras Bulba").

If a proper name acts as an addition, that is, in the absence of a defined word, then it can change its form:

• Lermontov was not enthusiastic about his "Demon".
• Dostoevsky described the spiritual crisis of his time in The Brothers Karamazov.
• A lot is said and written about Taras Bulba.

Practice #3

Which sentences have errors?

1. We stood for a long time at the painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga".

2. In The Hero of His Time, Lermontov sought to uncover the problems of his era.

3. In the "Journal of Pechorin" the vices of a secular person are revealed.

4). The story "Maxim Maksimych" reveals the image of a beautiful person.

5. In his opera The Snow Maiden, Rimsky-Korsakov sang love as the highest ideal of mankind.

I'm very sorry for the flood, but can't they write this in a simpler way?

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See what "Common" is in other dictionaries:

common noun- This word (used in combination with a common noun) is a derivational tracing paper from the Latin appellativum (nomen), which in turn is a tracing paper from the Greek prosegorikon (onoma). Latin appello means I call, I call ... Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Krylov

Name, gram., tracing paper lat. nōmen appellativum from Gr. ὄνομα προσηγορικόν; see Thomsen, Gesch. sixteen … Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Fasmer

common noun- (name). Word-building. tracing paper of the 18th century lat. appellative, suf. derived from appellare "to name, name". Wed a terminological synonym for appellative, which is a direct borrowing from lat. lang. See denounce, speech... Etymological dictionary of the Russian language

Common nouns are nouns denoting the name (common name) of a whole class of objects and phenomena that have a certain common set of features, and naming objects or phenomena according to their belonging to such a class. ... ... Wikipedia

Common nouns (tracing paper from Latin nōmen appellativum from Greek ὄνομα προσηγορικόν) are nouns denoting the name (common name) of a whole class of objects and phenomena that have a certain common set of features, and ... ... Wikipedia

See nomen actionis... Five-language dictionary of linguistic terms

Substantive noun), naming an object or phenomenon according to its belonging to a given category, that is, characterized by features that allow the selection of the category [i] itself (a person, a blonde, a city, a river, a constellation, a ship, a book, ... ... Handbook of etymology and historical lexicology

common noun- 1) A generalized name for homogeneous objects and concepts (for example: brother, lake, country, victory) 2) Name, name (usually a literary hero, historical figure, event, etc.), personifying what l. certain properties, qualities, etc. ... ... Dictionary of many expressions

A common expression denoting an unfair trial. It is associated with the same name of the Russian satirical story of the 2nd half of the 17th century, written on the basis of a fairy tale plot common among many peoples. The theme of the story... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Laisa- A common name denoting a young, beautiful, but cold and soulless courtesan. It originates from ancient anecdotes. (Modern Dictionary Reference: Antique World. Compiled by M.I. Umnov. M .: Olympus, AST, 2000) ... Antique world. Dictionary reference.