Seminar 2 Theoretical questions to be discussed

1. The noun. General characteristics.

The noun is a part of speech that represents a person, place, thing, or idea. It is a word that can serve as the subject or object of a sentence. Nouns can be singular (referring to one item) or plural (referring to more than one item). They can also have different genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter) and cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and instrumental).

2. Semantic Classification of Nouns.

Nouns can be classified based on their meaning or semantic content. Some common semantic classifications include:

1. Proper Nouns: refer to specific names of people, places, or things (e.g., John, London, Coca-Cola).

2. Common Nouns: refer to general categories of people, places, or things (e.g., car, city, animal).

3. Concrete Nouns: refer to tangible, physical objects that can be perceived with the senses (e.g., table, dog, tree).

4. Abstract Nouns: refer to concepts, ideas, or qualities that are not physical and cannot be perceived with the senses (e.g., love, happiness, freedom).

5. Countable Nouns: refer to items that can be counted (e.g., book, apple, person).

6. Uncountable Nouns: refer to substances or concepts that cannot be counted (e.g., water, information, happiness).

3. The category of case.

Case is a grammatical category that reflects the relationship of a noun to other words in a sentence. In English, nouns can have different forms depending on their function in a sentence. The main cases in English are:

1. Nominative Case: used for the subject of a sentence (e.g., He is a doctor).

2. Genitive Case: shows possession or ownership (e.g., John's car).

3. Dative Case: indicates the indirect object of a verb (e.g., She gave him a gift).

4. Accusative Case: used for the direct object of a verb (e.g., I bought a book).

5. Instrumental Case: indicates the means or instrument by which an action is performed (e.g., He cut the bread with a knife).

4. The category of number.

Number is a grammatical category that indicates whether a noun is singular or plural. In English, nouns can be singular (referring to one item) or plural (referring to more than one item). The plural form of a noun is usually formed by adding -s or -es to the singular form (e.g., cat - cats, box - boxes). Some nouns have irregular plural forms that do not follow this pattern (e.g., child - children, person - people).

5. Ways of formation of plurals (a report)

There are several ways to form plurals in English:

1. Add -s to the singular form: cat - cats, book - books

2. Add -es to the singular form if the noun ends in -s, -x, -z, -ch, or -sh: box - boxes, watch - watches

3. Change the ending of the noun: man - men, woman - women

4. Keep the same form for both singular and plural: sheep - sheep, deer - deer

5. Use a completely different word for the plural: child - children, foot - feet

6. The category of gender.

Gender is a grammatical category that reflects the natural gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter) or arbitrary gender (animate or inanimate) of nouns. In English, nouns do not have grammatical gender in the same way that some other languages do. However, some nouns do have natural gender (e.g., boy - masculine, girl - feminine) or animate/inanimate gender (e.g., tree - inanimate, cat - animate) based on the meaning of the word.