Seminars in theoretical grammar

SEMESTER VIII

Seminar III

The Noun and its Grammatical Categories

1. The general characteristics of the noun as a part of speech. Classification of nouns.

2. The category of gender: the traditional and modern approaches to the category of gender. Gender in Ukrainian and English.

3. The category of number. Traditional and modern interpretations of number distinctions of the noun. Singularia Tantum and Pluralia Tantum nouns. Collective nouns and nouns of multitude.

4. The category of case: different approaches to its interpretation.

5. The oppositional reduction of the nounal categories: neutralization and transposition in the categories of gender, of number and of case.

6. The category of article determination. The status of article in the language hierarchy.

List of terms:

thingness, ”cannon ball” problem, common noun, proper noun, countable noun, uncountable noun, animate noun, inanimate noun, human nouns, non-human nouns, biological sex (gender), gender agreement, formal category, meaningful category, gender classifiers, obligatory correlation, person nouns, non-person nouns, neuter gender, feminine nouns, masculine nouns, common gender, personification, Singularia Tantum (Absolute Singular), Pluralia Tantum (Absolute Plural), “the theory of positional cases”, nominative, genitive (possessive), dative, accusative, vocative cases, “the theory of prepositional cases”, “the theory of the possessive postposition” (“the theory of no case”), “the theory of limited case”, the genitive (possessive) case, the common case, transformational diagnostic test, lexicalization, absolute genitive, determination, determiner (lexical or grammatical), definite article, indefinite article, zero article (meaningful non-use, absence of an article), identification, individualization, classifying (relative) generalization, classification, absolute generalization, the semantic category of “definiteness – indefiniteness – generalization” (determiners of definiteness, determiners of indefiniteness, determiners of generalization)

Practical Assignments:

I. Speak on the peculiarities of the number expression in the following nouns: arm, penny, snow, money, bison, team, colour, brother, fruit, family, poultry.

II. Analyze the use of number in nouns in the following sentences and decide whether count/mass division is a distinction between words or ways of using words:

1. When I think of that house I think of objects and silences. The silences were almost visible; I pictured them as gray, hanging in the air like smoke (M. Atwood)

2. If students can learn to write well by studying manuals of errors ... classes can go from ten to fifty and tax monies can be released for other purposes. (D. Bolinger)

3. It is because I like lambs that I don't like lamb. (K. Allan)

4. Hetty likes to gorge herself on cake. Whenever Hetty gobbles down a cake, her diet 'starts tomorrow'. (K. Allan)

III. Define the syntagmatic meanings of the possessive case in the sentences:

1. It used to be my sister's room.

2. Then came a moment's silence. He was dressed in a sailor's pants.

3. She watched my approach with a philosopher's superior curiosity (A. Miller)

4. 'You are strangely like Titian's portrait of Francis I in the Louvre'

5. "With his little pig's eyes" (W.S. Maugham)

6. … our American is delighted with the attractive French lady's remark.