§ 4. Classification of Nouns

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

1. Proper nouns are individual names given to separate persons or things (E.g. Shakespeare, Peter, London, February, and Monday).

2. Common nouns are names that can be applied to any individual of a class of persons or things (class nouns): (E.g. man, dog, book; collections of similar individuals or things regarded as a single unit (collective nouns):E.g. peasantry, family; materials (nouns of material): E.g. snow, iron, cotton; or abstract notions (abstract nouns): kindness, development.

3. Collective nouns fall under:

- Nouns used only in singular: foliage, machinery, team, crew.

- Nouns, which are singular in form but plural in meaning “nouns of multitude”: police, cattle, people, gentry.

- Nouns that can be both singular and plural: crowd-crowds, fleet-fleets, nation-nations, family-families.

Collective nouns are usually singular and are used with singular verbs, when they denote a thing as a whole. However, sometimes a plural verb is used, when it denotes a number of people or elements. (E.g. The Russian team was playing well).

Some collective nouns have singular and plural form (E.g. My family is small. My family are very friendly people).

Nouns of material are uncountable and are generally used in the singular. They are used in the plural to denote different sorts or portions of a given material. (E.g. wine-wines; fruit-fruits; glass-glasses; ice-ices). (E.g. tea, sugar, gold, silver; two teas, two ice-creams.)

4. Abstract nouns are usually uncountable though some of them may be countable. (E.g. idea, hour). However, they may change their meaning and become class nouns. In this case they are used with the article and may be plural. (E.g. beauty-a beauty-beauties; sight-a sight-sights).

Nouns can be countable, that denote things that can be counted (E.g. a book-5books); and uncountable, that denote things we can’t count; they have no plural; we can’t use a/an before them (E.g. the music, some bread, his blood, much excitement).

Many nouns can be used as countable and uncountable nouns. Usually there is a difference in meaning. (E.g., I bought a paper- a newspaper-countable; there’s a hair in my soup-one single hair-countable; we had many interesting experiences during our holiday-things that happened to us-countable).

Some nouns are usually uncountable in English but often countable in other languages. They are always used in singular. Here are the most important of these:

Accommodation, advice, baggage, luggage, behavior, bread, chaos, furniture, money, information, research, knowledge, ink, cream, yeast, hair news, permission, progress, scenery, traffic, travel, trouble, weather, work, classics, linguistics, mathematics, phonetics, athletics, ceramics, gymnastics, politics, tactics, means, gallows. (Note: the following nouns, ending in –s, can be singular and plural; a means of transport-many means, a television series-two series, a species of bird-ten species.). Some diseases: measles-корь, mumps-свинка, rickets-рахит, shingles-краснуха. Some games: billiards, bowls, dominoes, drafts. (when used attributively, no plural). (E.g. a billiard table.). Some proper nouns: Algiers, Athens, Brussels, Naples, Wales, the United Nations, and the United States. (E.g., the United States is popular all over the world.).

There are a number of invariable nouns, which are uncountable and are used in plural. These nouns are rather numerous. Semantically they fall into several groups:

- Names of tools or articles of dress consisting of two equal parts, which are joined:

Bellows-мехи кузнечные, binoculars, breeches, braces-подтяжки, glasses, pants, pajamas, scales, scissors, shorts, spectacles, tongs, trousers, fetters.

• Miscellaneous nouns: antics, archives, arms, ashes, contents, customs (таможенная пошлина), earnings, goods, greens, outskirts, troops, wages, the Middle Ages, whereabouts-приблизительное местоположение, sweepings, clothes, odds, premises, traffic-lights.

• The proper nouns: the East Indies, the West Indies, the Hebrides, the Highlands, the Midlands, the Netherlands.

• Collective nouns: potatoes, onions, carrots, oats, crops, looks, (E.g. Potatoes are very cheap in autumn.).

In English the nouns gate, sledge, watch, and clock are used in both singular and plural (E.g. the gate is open. The gates are open).