The Noun

1. The noun as a part of speech. Definition. General characteristics of nouns as a part of speech (semantic, morphological, syntactic).

The Noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word.

Ilyish	Хаймович, Роговская	Blokh
The Noun in ME has only 2 grammatical categories: number & case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful & has to be carefully analyzed. The ME noun has not got the category of grammatical gender.	The Noun is a part of speech characterized by the following features: the lexico-grammatical meaning of “substance”. The categories of number & case. Typical stem-building morphemes (-ist; -er; -ship; ment). Left-hand connections with articles, prepositions, adjectives, possessive pronouns, other nouns. The functions of subject, complement & other parts of the sentence.	Noun is the main nominative part of speech, effecting nomination of the fullest value within the framework of the notional division of lexicon.
		The category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the 3rd person. Person: masculine/feminine; Non-person: neuter.
+ Between the Sg & the Pl an additional difference of meaning has developed  the plural form develops a completely new meaning which the singular has not got at all (e.g. colour/colours)- the plural form has been lexicalized.

2. Classification of nouns. Different criteria for noun classification.

Ilyish:

Pluralia Tantum (e.g. trousers, scissors, tongs (щипцы), pincers (клещи), breeches, environs (окрестности), outskirts, dregs (отбросы), mathematics, phonetics, measles, mumps) and Singularia Tantum (e.g. milk, butter, quicksilver, peace).

Collective nouns and nouns of multitude. Certain nouns denoting groups of human beings (e.g. family, government, clergy) and also of animals (e.g. cattle, poultry) 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 singulars, and usually termed “collective nouns” (e.g. My family is small); or else they are taken to denote the group as consisting of a certain number of individual human beings (or animals), and in that case they are usually termed “nouns of multitude” (e.g. My family are good speakers).

A.Isachenko:

The essential meanings of the category is not that of quantity, but of discreteness (расчленённость)  the plural expresses fundamentally the notion of something consisting of distinguishable parts, and the meaning of quantity in the usual sense would then appear to be a result of combining the fundamental meaning of the category as such with the lexical meaning of the noun used in the plural (e.g. scissors – an object consisting of 2 parts).

Хаймович/Роговская:

• Category of number: countables/uncountables;

• Category of case: declinables/indeclinables

• Semantically: abstract/concrete; collective (e.g. government, family, foliage); material (uncountables); proper (e.g. Brown)

Stone wall problem. Whether such words are compound words or word-combinations.

Ilyish: the 1^st component are nouns functionally resembling adjectives.

Smirnitsky and Akhmanova: these are unstable compounds easily developing into word-combinations. The 1^st component are not nouns since:

1. they are used in the plural (e.g. a rose garden – a garden of roses);

2. nouns are used as attributes only in the possessive case or with a preposition.

Хаймович/Роговская:

1. the 1^st components do occur in the plural (e.g. armaments door, munitions board);

2. the 1^st component of such formations may have left-hand connections with adjectives (e.g. film exchange – new film exchange), nouns in the possessive case (e.g. a skin trunk – a cow-s skin trunk), nouns in common case (e.g. paper writing – business paper writing), numerals (e.g. 32 years practice);

3. every noun may be used as the 1^st component, proper nouns may be used, 2 nouns connected by a conjunction may be used ( e.g. mother and child care).

Conclusions:

1. the 1^st components are nouns, not noun-stems;

2. these formations are noun word-combinations with noun adjuncts.

3. Paradigmatic properties of nouns in English. Peculiarities of nouns declension. English and Russian system of noun declension compared.

Хаймович/Роговская:

The category of number of English is the system of opposemes (e.g. girl-girls, foot-feet).

All number opposemes are identical in content: they contain 2 particular meanings of “singular” and “plural” united by the general meaning of the category of number. But there is a considerable variety of form in number opposemes, though it is not so great as in the Russian language.

Boy-boys: singularity is expressed by zero-morpheme and plurality is marked by the positive morpheme –s  singular is not marked, the plural is marked.

Phenomenon-phenomena: both are marked.

4. The category of case.

Ilyish:

Case is the category of a noun expressing relations between the thing denoted by the noun and other things, or properties, or actions, and manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself (e.g. inflection, zero-morpheme).

The problem of case in ME nouns is one of the most vexed (disputed) problems in English grammar. The views on the subject differ widely.

Views:

1. English nouns have 2 cases: common case (e.g. father) and genitive case (e.g. father’s);

2. The number of cases in English is more than 2 (3, 4, 5 …∞); the case may be expressed by prepositions or by word order;

Max Deutschbein: ME nouns have 4 cases:

1. nominative;

2. genitive (-‘s; of…);

3. dative (to…; word order);

4. accusative (word order).

I.I.Meshchaninov:

+ instrumental case (e.g. with the pen);

+ locative case (e.g. in the pen)

3. There are no cases in English nouns at all, e.g. Smith and Brown’s office (the office belonging to both Smith and Brown). The man I saw yesterday’s son – “noun + attributive clause + -‘s).  views:

1. when –‘s belongs to a noun it is still the genitive ending, when it belongs to a phrase it tends to become a syntactical element, a postposition;

2. since –‘s can belong to a phrase it is no longer a case inflection even when it belongs to a single noun;

3. the -‘s when belonging to a noun, no longer expresses a case, but a new grammatical category of ‘possession”.

Хаймович/Роговская:

The category of case of nouns is the system of opposemes (girl-girl’s) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech.

Case is one of those categories which show the close connection (a) between language and speech, (b) between morphology and syntax.

1. the members of the case opposeme John-John’s are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmatic differences.

2. Though case is a morphological category it has a distinct syntactical significance. Common case  the functions of subject and object; possessive case  the function of an attribute.