Grammar / The Case of Nouns

§ 13. A noun used as subject of the sentence agrees in number with its predicate verb: a singular noun takes a singular verb; a plural noun takes a plural verb. This rule may be called grammati­ cal concord.

Difficulties arise, however, with collective nouns, i.e. nouns denoting groups of people and sometimes animals. Here belong such nouns as the aristocracy, army, audience, board, the bourgeoi­ sie, class, the clergy, committee, (the) Congress, crew, crowd, dele­

Such nouns may be used in two ways: they either indicate the group as a single undivided body, a non-personal collective, or as a collection of individuals. In the former case there is no contradic­ tion between the form and the meaning of such nouns and they take a singular noun (grammatical concord).

e.g. The audience was enormous. The crowd has been dispersed.

The public consists of you and me.

The college football team has done badly this season. His family was well known in their town.

In the latter case the nouns, though remaining singular gram­ matically become plural notionally and take a plural verb. This may be called notional concord.

e.g. The public were not admitted to hear the trial. "The team are now resting", the coach said to us. "My family keep a close eye on me," said George. The audience were enjoying every minute of it.

Some of the collective nouns, however, regularly require a plu­ ral verb. Here belong; people (люди, народ), ' police and cattle.

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Nouns

e.g. There were few people out in the street at that hour.

He said: "Martha, the police have the man that stole your

purse."

His uncle showed him the pastures where the cattle were grazing.

On the whole, in British English the plural verb appears to be more common with collective nouns in speech, whereas in writing the singular verb is probably preferred. It is generally safest for a foreign learner, when in doubt, to obey grammatical concord. In American English, collective nouns almost always go with a singu­ lar verb.

Note. A number of (несколько, ряд) usually agrees with a plural verb, e.g. There were quite a number of people watching the game.

The Case of Nouns

§ 14. Case is the form of the noun which shows the relation of the noun to other words in the sentence.

English nouns have two case forms — the common case and

the apostrophe (-') alone.

The suffix -s is pronounced [z] after vowels and voiced conso­

pronunciation of both variants appears to be [...iz], but the com­ mon spelling — with the apostrophe only.

1 The noun people meaning 'nationality' can have a singular and a plural form: a people — peoples.

Note. Notice that with compound nouns the suffix -'s is always added to the fi­ nal component, e.g. my father-in-law's house, the passer-by's remark.