The noun. The category of number.

The Noun as a part of speech is singled out on the basis of the following criteria:

• 1. categorial lexico-grammatical meaning of substance, "thingness»: names of concrete objects, living beings, properties, actions, relations, etc. presented as self-dependent substances:

tree, wolf, length, intelligence, talk, friendship

• 2. morphological categories of Number, Case, Gender and Determination (definiteness / indefiniteness);

• 3. typical word-building patterns:

(a) suffixation: -er, -ship, -ness, -ment, -ity, -ion, etc;

(b) compounding: N+N: airmail; A+N: bluebell; Ger+N: looking-glass, etc;

(c) conversion: from Verbs: talk, walk; from Adj: native, German, etc.

• 4. combinability:

(a) left-hand connections with Prep, Adj, N, Num, Prn, V; also A;

(b) right-hand connections with Prep, V, N.

• 5. Syntactic function: Subject and Object.

Subcategorization of Nouns:

• According to the type of nomination: common vs proper;

• According to the form of existence: animate vs inanimate and human (personal) vs non-human (non-personal) (Case, Gender);

• According to the quantitative characteristics: countable vs uncountable (Number);

• According to the nature of the object denoted: concrete vs abstract.

THE CATEGORY OF NUMBER

Singular ^--

• the weak (unmarked) member of the opposition, both in form and in meaning;

• no positive mark;

broad and indefinite grammatical meaning

Plural ⁺

• the strong (marked) member of the opposition;

• marked by a special morpheme of plurality;

concrete and bright grammatical meaning

Morpheme of plurality:

Productive:

-(e)s:

Allomorphs

[s] [z] [iz]

books boys boxes

cats girls places

Unproductive:

• -en: children, oxen

• 0: sheep, salmon

• vowel interchange:

man – men, goose – geese, etc.

• Greek & Latin endings:

a – ae, um – a, us – i,

Grammatical meanings of the categorial forms of Number

Countable

• Singular — «oneness»

• Plural — «more-than-oneness»

Uncountable

• Singularia Tantum

(cream, advice, money)

• Pluralia Tantum

(scissors, goods, cattle)

NUMBER OF THE NOUN

Discrete

Count uncount

Sg & Pl Pl

Indiscrete

Uncountable

Sg ( milk, butter, news.)

 

The noun. The category of case.

THE CATEGORY OF CASE (inflectional variation of the Noun): a nominal category established by the opposition of the categorial forms of the noun expressing relations between the noun and other words in the sentence.

CASE

Common ^--

student —

students —

• unmarked (vague, indefinite) meaning

Possessive / Genitive ⁺

— student’s

— students’

* marked Plurals:

children’s, men’s, women’s

• marked meaning (limitation of the noun reference)

Meanings of the Genitive Case:

• Possession: the boy’s toy the boy has a toy;

• origin: Shaw’s plays Shaw wrote the plays;

• social relations: Judy’s friends;

• part of a whole: the girl’s eyes;

• subjective Genitive:

the student’s reply the student replied;

• objective Genitive:

Napoleon’s defeat X defeated Napoleon / Napoleon was defeated by X;

• quantitative Genitive: three miles’ walk;

• qualitative / descriptive Genitive:

angel’s smile, sheep’s eyes

• Lexicalization of the Genitive case morpheme (locative meaning):

baker’s, florist’s, St Paul’s

The Genitive Case is used with the following groups of nouns:

• names of persons (the boy's shirt, George Washington's statue);

• collective nouns (the government's statement, the nation's social security);

• higher animals (the horse's hoof, the lion's tail);

• locative nouns (Europe's future, the school's history);

• temporal nouns (a moment's thought);

The Theory of Prepositional / Analytical Cases (G. Curme):

Counterarguments:

• Prepositions preserve their lexical meaning;

• The number of “prepositional” cases is not definite;

• some prepositional constructions are synonymous with the synthetic case forms:

my dog's toys = the toys of my dog

Relations between words in the sentence can be expressed:

• Morphologically (by means of case forms);

• Syntactically (by means of prepositions and word order).

The category of case of the English noun has not disappeared but has radically transformed:

• The grammatical meaning of the opposition is limitation / non-limitation of the noun reference.

• The case inflection has acquired mobility within the noun phrase.

• The semantic and syntactic capacity of the category has narrowed.

• The present category of case is subsidiary to the syntactic expression of the relations of the noun.

 

The adjective. The category of degrees of comparison.

The adjective is singled out on the basis of three criteria:

1. the lexico-grammatical meaning of property of substance (quality, attribute, state, etc.): long, wooden,

2. morphological properties:

(a) derivational suffixes (-able, -al,-ish, -ive, -less, etc);

(b) the grammatical category of degrees of comparison;

3. syntactic properties:

(a) the functions of the attribute and predicative / subject or object complement;

(b) combinability with

• nouns: fine weather, time immemorial

• pronouns: everything possible

• link verbs: seem true

• adverbs: awfully nice

• prepositional phrases: anxious about smth

• infinitives: difficult to read

Semantic and functional classification of adjectives:

qualitative (those denotingproperties of a substance directly: great, cold, beautiful);

relative( denoting properties of a substance through relation to place,material, etc: northern, weekly)

quantitative: numerous, enormous, little, few, many, much;

Substantivation of adjectives

Full

• Sg & Pl number: a native – natives

• case: native – native’s

• definite, indefinite a native – the native

Partial

• the definite article;

• one number:

Sg: the unknown (abstract)

Pl: the brave (collective)

Approaches to classification of partially substantivized adjectives

• collective nouns (foreign linguists);

• adjectives (A.I. Smirnitsky: adjectives used without the head noun — elliptical NP);

• a separate part of speech – partially substantivized adjectives.

BUT! These words are not specific enough to be singled out into a separate part of speech. They form peripheral groups within Nouns or Adj.

(OR overlapping of the noun and adjective fields).

Degrees of comparison denote the degree of intensity of the given quality (only for qualitative adj.)

qualitative adjectives that DO NOT HAVE degrees of comparison:

• adjectives with a lexical comparative or superlative meaning: senior, junior, minimal

• adjectives with the suffix –ish denoting some gradation of quality: darkish, greenish

• adjectives denoting qualities not compatible with the idea of comparison: dead,childless, middle

The syntactic constructions of comparison denote:

1) equal degree of quality:

My job is as difficult as yours.

2) comparative superiority or inferiority: My job is easier/more difficult than yours. My job is less difficult than yours.

3) absolute superiority or inferiority:

My job is the easiest/the most difficult of all. My job is the least difficultof all.

(4) sufficiency of quality:

My job is easy enough.

Specific forms of the adjective used in the constructions of comparisonEnglish

• synthetic (syffixes -er, -est ):

louder – loudest

• analytical (auxiliaries more, most):

more exciting – most exciting

The problem of the «analytical» forms of comparison

• the words more and most have not lost their lexical meaning:

She is more beautiful – She has more beauty;

they can be contrasted to the words less and least;

more can be repeated for emphasis:

It was getting more and more dangerous.

more and most are not necessarily in complementary distribution with –er and –est:

nicer and more nice.

The noun. The category of article determination.

In English, the article

• is spelt separately from the noun;

• can be separated from the noun by other words;

• possesses its own lexical (demonstrativeness / oneness) and lexico-grammatical meaning (definiteness & specification / indefiniteness & classification).

The nature of the Article?

• a word (a separate part of speech)

A+N is a phrase

• an auxiliary element, a word morpheme

A+N is an analytical form of the noun