Inanimate nouns (neživotné)

a) geographical names: continents: Europe´s future, countries: China´s development, the United States´ attitude; states: Maryland´s Democratic Senator, Minnesota´s immigrants; cities: London´s water supply; universities: Harvard´s Linguistics Department

b) places and institutions: the Church´s mission, the hotel´s entrance, the club´s pianist, the school´s history, The European Economic Community´s exports

c) temporal nouns: the decade´s events, a day´s work, a week´s holiday, this years´ sales, today´s business

d) nouns of special interest to human activity: the brain´s total solid weight, my life´s aim, television´s future, the novel´s structure, in freedom´s name

e) fixed expressions: at death´s door, for goodness´ sake, by a hair´s breadth

f) personification: Nature´s work, Fortune´s favourite

Uses of the –of genitive

Inanimate nouns

a) parts of things: the bottom/inside of the box

b) abstract reference: the cost of living, the price of success

c) expressions of quantity: a cup of tea, a slice of bread, a small sum of money

d) geographical terms: the continent of Europe, the island of Cyprus, the county of Kent

The both constructions are sometimes possible: the car´s engine - the engine of the car, the book´s title - the title of the book, the town´s population - the population of the town

-almost every ´s construction may have an of equivalent, but not every of construction has an ´s equivalent (E.g. A man´s voice - the voice of a man; the leg of the table - the table leg)

- when in doubt use the of genitive.

Gender

In many languages, including Slovak, words like table, book or radio have gender. They are classified grammatically as masculine, feminine, neuter and their gender doesn’t relate to sex. In English natural sex distinctions determine gender distinctions. English gender is covert in contrast to the overt gender systems of other languages.

Two types of nouns

1) morphologically unmarked for gender: have no overt marking that suggests morphological correspondence between masculine and feminine, there are two different lexical units: brother - sister, father - mother, gentleman - lady, king - queen, monk - nun, uncle - aunt, nephew – niece, buck – doe, bull - cow, ram - ewe, stallion - mare, cock - hen, gander - goose

2) morphologically marked for gender: the two gender forms have a derivational relationship: bridegroom - bride, duke - duchess, emperor - empress, god - goddess, host - hostess, widower - widow, hero - heroine, usher – usherette, lion - lioness, leopard - leopardess

- the –ess ending and other forms indicating gender in the pairs of nouns such as actor - actress, heir – heiress, poet – poetess, policeman – policewoman, model – male model are becoming rarer (sexist language), words as police officer, author, instructor, manager, poet are preferred for both sexes.

Gender in inanimate nouns (usually in poetic language)

• countries, towns, ships, motorbikes, nature, moon, abstract nouns: charity, fame, fortune, mercy, modesty, victory, justice and liberty are usually feminine

• time, love, sun, death, murder, anger are masculine

1. sunshine/showers

2. luggage/bags

3. equipment/tools

4. paintings/jewellery

5. jobs/work

6. houses/accommodation

1. chickens

2. an improvement

3. success

4. Life

5. a dislike

6. language

1. a) education

b) Education

2. a) Traffic

b) traffic/ an illegal traffic

3. a)resistance

b)a resistance

4. a) damages

b) damages

5. a) a paper

b) paper

6. a) speech

b) speeches

Homework 7

Please, answer these questions: