3. The noun. The category of number

Meaning: thingness. Form. Nouns have the category of number (singular and plural); the category of case (common & genitive). Function in the sentence: it may be the subject or the predicative of a sentence, or an object, an attribute, an adverbial modifier.

The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the sing. form of N . The essential meaning of singular and plural seems clear: the singular noun shows that one object is meant and the plural shows that more than one is meant. The productive ways of expressing the number is the morpheme –S. zero morpheme is used to express the singular. The other ways are: vowel interchange men-man; the archaic suffix en ox-oxen, and also individual singular and plural suffixes of borrowed nouns: formula-formulae. There are also cases of homonymy (fish-fish).

The nouns which have only a plural form are termed - Pluralia Tantum. They include nouns of 2 types: 1. the noun which denote material objects consisting of 2 parts (trousers); 2. those which denote more or less indefinite plurality (premises). Close to these groups are also some names of sciences (physics,politics), names of diseases.

Nouns which have only a singular form –Singularia tantum. They are: nouns denoting material substance (milk,butter) & names of abstract notions (peace). Some nouns denoting substance or material may have a plural form if they used to denote an object made of the material or substance (iron-irons).

Certain nouns denoting groups of human beings and animals can be used in 2 different ways: either they are taken to denote the group as a whole and in that case they are treated as singular and termed as ‘collective nouns’ (~committee, team); or else they are taken to denote the group as consisting of a certain number of individual human beings and termed nouns of multitude

4. Segmental and suprasegmental units

Units of language are divided into segmental and suprasegmental. Segmental units consist of phonemes, they form phonemic units of various status (syllables,morphemes,words). Suprasegmental units do not exist by themselves, but are realized together with segmental units, and express different modificational meanings which are reflected in the strings of segmental units. To the suprasegmenal units belong intonations, accents, pauses, and patterns of word-order.

The segmental units form a hierarchy of levels. This hierarchy is of a kind that units of any higher level analyzable into the units of the immediately lower level.

The lowest level of lingual segments is phonemic: it is formed by phonemes as the material elements of the higher –level segments. The phonemes have no meaning and are combined into syllables.

The level located above the phonemic one is the morphemic level. The morpheme is the elementary meaningful part of the word.

The third level is the level (lesemic), in which the word is a directly naming unit of language.

The next higher level is phrase (phrasemic level). Combinations of words have a nominative function, but they represent the referent of nomination as a complicated phenomenon.

The next level is denotemic, represented by parts of the sentence. The function of these parts is denotative- they no only name but also indicate objects and phenomena involved in the situation.

Above the denotemic level of sentences is located (proposemic level). The character of the sentences consists in the fact that naming a certain situation, it expresses predication; it shows the relation of the denoted event to reality.