Lecture 6 The Noun. The Grammatical Category of Number

The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form of the noun. The strong member of this binary opposition is the plural, its productive formal mark being the suffix - (e) s. For example:

dog-dogs +

The other, non-productive ways of expressing the number opposition are

• vowel interchange (man - men, woman - women, tooth - teeth, etc.);

• the archaic suffix - (e) n (ox - oxen, child - children, brother - brethren);

• the correlation of individual singular and plural suffixes in a limited number of borrowed nouns (formula - formulae, phenomenon - phenomena, etc.);

• homonymous forms for singular and plural (sheep, deer, fish, etc.).

On the surface of semantic relations, the meaning of the singular will be understood as simply “one”, as opposed to the meaning “more than one”. This is apparently obvious for such correlations as book - books, lake - lakes, etc. But there are some nouns the singular and plural of which present some problem. For example: potato (one item of the vegetables) and potatoes (food), paper (material) and papers (notes or documents), etc. As a results of the comparison the categorial meaning of plurality in the grammatical sense should be described as the potentially dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent, while the categorial meaning of singularity should be understood as the non-dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent.

On the other hand, here are semantic varieties of the plural forms that differ from one another in their plural quality. Here belong, for example, cases where the plural form expresses

• a definite set of object (eyes of the face, wheels of the vehicle, etc.);

• various types of the referent ( wines, steels, etc.);

• intensity of the presentation (years and years, thousands and thousands, etc.);

• picturesqueness (sands, waters, snows, etc.).

The extreme point of this semantic scale is mark by the lexicalization of the plural form: colors (flag), attentions (wooing), pains (effort), etc. But, despite all these discrepancies the grammatical category of number is considered to be valid within the whole class of nouns.

Alongside with the regular countable nouns there exist the so-called uncountable nouns which are grammatically treated either singular (modified by non-discrete quantifiers much, little; take the verb in the singular) and plural.

The two subclasses of uncountable nouns are usually referred, to respectively, as singularia tantum (weak member) and pluralia tantum (strong member).

The absolute singular is characteristic of the names of abstract notions (peace, love, joy, etc.), names of branches of professional activity (chemistry, architecture, linguistics, etc.), the names of mass-materials (water, snow, steel, etc.), the names of collective inanimate objects (foliage, furniture, machinery, etc.). Some of these words can be used in the form of the common singular with the common plural counterpart, but in this case they come to mean either different sorts of materials, or separate concrete manifestations of the qualities denoted by abstract nouns. For example; Joy is absolutely necessary for normal human life. It was a joy to see her among us. These holidays were her little joys for her.ln the cited example the opposition between countable and uncountable nouns is nullified but the oppositional force of the category of number is still rehabilitated.

Common number with uncountable singular nouns can also be expressed by means of combining them with words showing discreteness, such as bit, piece, item, sort. For example: The last two items of news were quite sensational. This kind of rendering the grammatical meaning of common number with uncountable nouns is so regular that it can be regarded as special suppletivity in the categorial system of number.

On the other hand countable nouns in the singular can express the categorial meaning of absolute singular by way of oppositional reduction. In such cases nouns express either the corresponding abstract ideas or mass-material correlated with its countable referent. For example: Waltz is a lovely dance Have we got chicken for the second course? Under this heading comes also the generic use of the singular.

The absolute plural is characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denotes objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors specs, etc.), rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and abstract (supplies, clothes, earnings, politics, poultry, cattle, police, etc.), denoting some diseases (measles, mumps, hysterics, etc.).

The necessity of expressing definite numbers in cases of uncountable pluralia tantum nouns has brought about different suppletive combinations specific to the plural form of the noun. Here belong collocations with such words as pair, set, group, bunch and some others.

Within the framework of the grammatical category of number the following types of oppositional reduction may take place.

1. The first type of reduction, consisting in the use of the absolute plural with countable nouns in the singular form, concerns collective nouns, which are changed into “nouns of multitude”.

The family were gathered round the table.

The government are unanimous in disapproving the move of the opposition.

This form of the absolute plural may be called “multitude plural”.

2. The second type of reduction, consisting in the use of the absolute plural with uncountable nouns in the plural form, concerns cases of stylistical marking of nouns. Thus, here we deals with transposition.

The sands of the desert; the snows of the Arctic; the waters of the Atlantic.

This variety of the absolute plural may be called “descriptive uncountable plural”.

3. The third type of oppositional reduction concerns common countable nouns used in repetition groups. The acquired implication is indefinitely large quantity. The nouns in repetition groups may themselves be used either in the plural or in the singular.

There were trees and trees all around us. I lit cigarette after cigarette.

This variety of the absolute plural may be called “repetition plural”.