Morphological composition of nouns.

According to their morphological composition we distinguish simple, derivative and compound nouns.

1. Simplenouns are nouns which have neither prefixes nor suffixes: 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

-ment: development

-ance: importance

-ence: dependence

-ty: cruelty

-ity: generosity

Productive noun-forming prefixes are:

re- reconstruction

co- co-author

dis- disarmament

mis- misunderstanding

over- overestimation

under- under-secretary

sub- subdivision

inter- interaction

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-stern+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.

Classification of nouns.

Nouns fall under two classes: proper nouns and common nouns.

A. Proper nouns are individual names given to separate persons or things. 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 ships, hotels, clubs, etc.

B. Common nouns are names that can be applied to any individual of a class or persons or things, collections of similar things or individuals regarded as a single unit, materials, abstract notions. They fall under four groups:

a) class nouns denote persons or things belonging to a class (e. g. man, dog, book). They are countable.

b) collective nouns – denote a number or collection of similar individuals or things as a single unit. (e. g. peasantry, family) They are used with singular verbs, when they denote a thing as whole. And they are used with plural verbs, when they denote a number of people or things. (My family is not large. – My family were having tea.)

Collective nouns fall under the following groups:

- nouns used only in the singular and denoting a number of things collected together and regarded as a single object: foliage, machinery.(Machinery was introduced.)

- nouns which are singular in form though plural in meaning: police, poultry, cattle, people, gentry. (The police have arrived. The cattle were in good condition. The people were sitting at their doors.)

- 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. – There were crowds of people.)

c) nouns of material – denote material (e. g. snow, iron, cotton) They are uncountable and are generally used without any article. (There was a scent of honey)

! Nouns of material are used in the plural to denote different sorts of a given material. (He sent her select wines.)

d) abstract nouns – denote abstract notions; some quality, state, action or idea (e. g. kindness, development) They are usually uncountable, though some of them may be countable (e. g. idea/ hour). (It’s these people with fixed ideas.)

Nouns may also be classified from another point of view: nouns denoting things (the word thing is used in a broad sense) that can be counted are called countable nouns; nouns denoting things that cannot be counted are called uncountable nouns.

! There are some nouns that are usually uncountable in English:

accommodation, advice, baggage, luggage, behavior, bread, chaos, furniture, money, information, news, permission, progress, scenery, traffic, travel, trouble, weather, work.

 

The category of number.

English countable nouns have two numbers – the singular and the plural.

1. The general rule for forming the plural of English nouns is by adding the ending -s to the singular; -s is pronounced in different ways:

[z] after voiced consonants and after vowels: flowers, beds, doves, bees, boys.

[s] after voiceless consonants: caps, books, hats, cliffs.

2. If the noun ends in -s, -ss, -x, -sh, -ch, or -tch, the plural is formed by adding -es to the singular:

bus – buses; box – boxes; bench – benches; glass – glasses; brush – brushes;

match – matches

3. If the noun ends in -o preceded by a consonant, the plural is generally formed by adding -es.

cargo – cargoes; hero – heroes; potato – potatoes; echo – echoes;

but: piano – pianos; solo – solos; photo – photos

All nouns ending in -о preceded by a vowel form the plural in -s and not in -es.

cuckoo – cuckoos; portfolio – portfolios; video – videos; radio – radios.

There are a few nouns ending in -o which form the plural both in -s and -es:

mosquito – mosquitos or mosquitoes

4. If the noun ends in -y preceded by a consonant, у is changed into i before -es.

fly – flies; army – armies; lady – ladies.

In proper names, however, the plural is formed by adding the ending -s to the singular: Mary – Marys.

Note.– If the final -y is preceded by a vowel the plural is formed by simply adding -s to the singular.

day – days; monkey – monkeys; toy – toys; key – keys; boy – boys

5. The following nouns ending in -f (in some cases followed by a mute e) change it into v (both in spelling and pronunciation) in the plural:

wife – wives; thief – thieves; knife – knives; calf – calves; life – lives; half – halves; sheaf – sheaves; shelf – shelves; leaf – leaves; wolf – wolves.

But: roof – roofs; chief – chiefs; handkerchief – handkerchiefs; proof – proofs.

There are some nouns ending in -f which have two forms in the plural:

scarf – scarfs or scarves wharf – wharfs or wharves

6. The plural forms of some nouns are survivals of earlier formations. There are seven nouns which form the plural by changing the root vowel:

man – men; goose – geese; woman – women; mouse – mice; foot – feet; louse –lice; tooth – teeth.

7. There are two nouns which form the plural in -en:

ox – oxen; child – children

8. In some nouns the plural form does not differ from the singular:

deer, sheep, swine, fish, trout, salmon, aircraft.

8. Some words borrowed from Latin or Greek keep their Latin or Greek plural forms: e. g. phenomenon – phenomena; datum – data; crisis – crises; stimulus –stimuli; formula – formulae; index – indices.

Some of these nouns have acquired English plural forms: memorandums, formulas, indexes, terminuses, etc.

The tendency to use the foreign plural is still strong in the technical language of science, but in fiction and colloquial English there is an evident inclination to give to certain words the regular English plural forms in -s. Thus in some cases two plural forms are preserved (formulae, formulas; antennae, antennas).

9. In compound nouns the plural is formed in different ways. As a rule a compound noun forms the plural by adding -s to the head-word:

editor-in-chief – editors-in-chief; brother-in-law – brothers-in-law; looker-on – lookers-on.

In some compound nouns the final element takes the plural form:

lady-bird – lady-birds

If there is no noun-stem in the compound, -s is added to the last element:

forget-me-not --forget-me-nots у; merry-go-round – merry-go-rounds

If the compound begins with the words man/woman both words are plural:

Man-servant–men-servants; woman-doctor–women-doctors.

10. Some nouns in English have only the plural form:

a) Trousers, spectacles, breeches, scissors, tongs, fetters, scales. These are for the most part names of things which consist of two or more parts.

b) Billiards, barracks, works. These nouns may be treated as singulars. We may say; a chemical works, a barracks, etc.

c) Words like phonetics, physics, politics, optics, etc. are usually treated as singulars except in some special cases.

d) The word news is treated as a singular. There is no news for her.

! Remember the words that are singular in Russian but plural in English:

Wages, contents, clothes, arms, stairs, riches, goods, potatoes, oats.

! The noun vacation is used in singular in English, and it is plural in Russian.

! The nouns gate, sledge, watch, clock are used both in the singular and in the plural, in Russian they are only plural.

The category of case.

English nouns denoting living beings (and some nouns denoting lifeless things) have two cases: the common case and the genitive (or possessive) case.

The genitive case is formed by adding -’s (the apostrophe s) to the noun in the singular and only ’ (the apostrophe) to plural forms ending in -s.

SINGULAR: a girl's book PLURAL: a girls’ School

Note 1. – Nouns forming their plural by changing the root vowel take the

apostrophe s in the plural.

SINGULAR: a man's hat PLURAL: men's hats

Note 2.– Nouns ending in -s form the genitive case by adding -’s (the apostrophe s) Dickens’s novels; an actress’s career.

Note 3.– Sometimes the apostrophe s may refer to a whole group of words: Jane and Mary's room but Jane’s and Mary’s rooms. The last word of the group need not even be a noun: I shall be back in an hour or two’s time.

Note 4. We add ’s to the last element of the word group: my brother-in-law’s house.

Note 5. – We use ’s with some non-living things:

- With time phrases: an hour’s journey, two day’s work, a month’s salary.

- In fixed phrases: the earth’s surface, journey’s end, ship’s company.

- Set-expressions: for heaven’s sake/for god’s sake, a hair’s breadth, at a stone’s throw.

- With nouns expressing space and weight, the names of the countries, cities, ships, organizations, with the nouns world, country, city, ship: the river’s edge, Moscow’s theatre, world’s best museums, the ship’s crew, the government decision.

As to its use the genitive case falls under: the Dependent Genitive and the Absolute Genitive.

The Dependent Genitive is used with the noun it modifies and comes before it: an actress’s career

The Absolute Genitive may be used without any noun it modifies: the stationer’s, the baker’s, the tobacconist’s, my uncle’s, etc.

 

Theme I.3. Exercises.

The category of number.

Ex. 1. Explain the formation and pronunciation of the plural form of the italicized nouns:

As we sailed up the River Hudson towards the cities of New York and Brooklyn, we experienced a sensation which is, I think common to all travellers who come to the end of their voyage. Many people have tried to analyse this emotion, and I have read many such analyses but none have ever really satisfied me.

The buildings stood out against the skyline like enormous box of matches stuck on end. The houses and churches were completely dwarfed by them. As we went up the river, we examined it all with our glasses. It seemed as if each building brushed the skies.

There were a lot of ships in the river mouth. They were brining cargoes from all over the world – cargoes of meat and potatoes and mangoes, of machines and toys and many other things. They carried silks from China and teas from India as well, flew the colours of almost every seafaring nation on the globe.

Armies of customs-officials, port-authorities and others, came on board. The passengers were paraded before the port doctor. He was a huge fat man. The first class passengers filed before him as solemn as oxen. Most of the third class passengers stood waiting their turn as quiet as mice, though some were as noisy as a flock of geese. They carried their savings in knotted handkerchiefs, and the rest of their belongings in bundles. Many seemed to have completely lost their bearings in their new and strange surroundings and seemed as bewildered as sheep, while their wives and children stared around like startled deer.

There seemed to be varying criteria for the treatment of passengers by the immigration authorities, according to the class which they travelled. Those of the third were examined for lice and other vermin, regardless of their feelings. And if a single louse was found, the individual was taken to Ellis Island, where there were plenty of delousing apparatuses. Our American brethren do nothing by halves, and do not care sixpence for anybody’s opinions of their methods.

We landed with every manifestation of high spirits and the customs people examined our effects. The hangers-on stared at as though we were curious phenomena.

On the day we landed, the news got around that an armistice had been signed, and New York was beside itself with joy. Nobody then guessed how many world crises would follow in the years to come; and what small consolation there would be for the men who had performed their duties like heroes in “a war to end war”.